


The Chunin Exams: Formation InoShikaNar

by 100percentfluffster



Series: InoShikaNar [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Ino, BAMF Team 10, Canon-Typical Violence, I give the girls real character, InoShikaNar, Team 7 disasters, Team 8, Team Gai - Freeform, Yamanaka Ino-centric, and character development, get ready
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 10:08:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23469679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100percentfluffster/pseuds/100percentfluffster
Summary: The Chunin exams with InoShikaNar as the focus.“We’re good, Naruto, but are we ready to face off against everyone else?” Ino asked.“And not just leaf nin, but genin from all the lands,” Shikamaru added.“Look,” Naruto said seriously, “Asuma recommended us for a reason. I say we trust that reason and go for it! Believe it!”“This is such a drag,” Shikamaru complained.Ino hid her smile and cocked her head to the side and said faux thoughtfully, “It’s either this or we keep doing D-rank missions. Do we really want to continue catching that damn cat and cleaning farm equipment?”Shikamaru winced and admitted, “You have a point.”Naruto shouted in victory and ran in small circles, “Yes, yes, yes! Chunin exams, here we come!”
Relationships: More to be added later - Relationship, Nara Shikamaru/Uzumaki Naruto, maybe
Series: InoShikaNar [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638862
Comments: 153
Kudos: 806





	1. Registration and the Exams Begin

**Author's Note:**

> Forewarning. I am making all kinds of shit up for lore. I have only watched the Shonen Jump series. I have no desire to watch Shippuden. I will undoubtedly get things wrong because I'm missing information. Just go with it, please.

After 16 D-rank missions, 8 C-rank missions, 1 surprise A-rank with a crabby bridge builder, dozens of shared secrets, hours and hours of training, and an unbreakable bond with her teammates, Ino found herself staring at a piece of paper. Naruto and Shikamaru stood to her side with identical sheets. 

“It’s your choice, but I recommended you three for the exam,” Asuma was explaining. “The chunin exams can be dangerous, very dangerous, and it’ll take a lot of effort.” He looked at Shikamaru meaningfully. 

“Troublesome,” Shikamaru muttered. 

“You don’t have to win. I won’t be mad or disappointed. You’re all rookies, it would be surprising if you made it to chunin this first time around, but it will be a good learning experience for you all.” 

“If we don’t die, you mean,” Ino snarked. “There’s never been a chunin exam in Konoha that didn’t have at least one death.” 

“You don’t have to do it. It’s your choice, guys. You either go as a team or not at all.” Asuma then stubbed out his cigarette on the wooden railing of the small bridge they were huddled together at. The railing was covered in burn marks from countless other times. “The exam is in four days. Registration is at noon on the 5th, let me know what you decide.” Then he put his hands together and disappeared in a swirl of overdramatic leaves and disrupted air. Ino rolled her eyes, honestly, Asuma had no room to say she was the drama queen of the group. 

She looked down at the paper in her hands, a blank registration form. Then she looked at her teammates. “What are you two thinking?” Ino asked. 

“This is awesome!” Naruto exclaimed with a fist pump and a bright smile. “Finally, something worth my time! We haven’t done anything cool since the Zabuza thing, I’m raring to go!” 

She felt more than saw the way Shikamaru slumped further into the railing beside her. “Troublesome. The chunin exams aren’t easy, Naruto. If we go in without caution then it could get us killed.” 

“We _are_ rookies,” Ino added. Her father hadn’t even taken the exams as a rookie. The prospect of doing so and proving her worth to her family was tempting, but so was staying alive and in one piece. Shikamaru was right. 

“Oh, come on! We can do this, it’s no sweat!” 

“Naruto!” Shikamaru scolded. “Just think about it. What if I die because you were too eager?” Naruto stopped dead in his tracks. “Ino and I will be vulnerable in this sort of atmosphere, we’re not optimized at close range.”

“That’s what we have Naruto for,” Ino said. She couldn’t decide if that was a point toward taking the exam or a point toward her being as idiotic as Naruto. 

“I would never let anything happen to either of you!” Naruto stated. Whenever Naruto _stated_ something it was always accompanied by a sort of growl to each word. Knowing of the chakra beast locked inside her friend, it made sense, but still sent a small shiver down her spine every time she heard it. 

Shikamaru just nodded and with a half smile replied, “I know, but shit happens, Nar.” 

“What’s the big deal?” Naruto asked. 

Ino paused. She was used to Naruto not knowing crucial information because no one had bothered to teach him until she and Shikamaru came along, but the chunin exams? Surely he’d heard of it in their classes. Had been to one in the huge arena. 

She bit her lip and realized that Naruto probably wouldn’t have been allowed entrance even if he had exhibited interest in it. Ino shared a look with Shikamaru and she gave a small shrug of her shoulders. Shikamaru lifted a brow but didn’t comment. 

Ino turned back to Naruto and used her teaching voice to make sure he was paying attention. “The chunin exams aren’t _just_ exams. They test your physical and mental abilities.” 

“They’re built to be too hard, so only the best of the best can get through them,” Shikamaru said. 

“There are three parts of every exam though the details change each time.” 

“The only thing that doesn’t change is that any combat within the exams is no holds barred.” 

“No holds...barred?” Naruto asked. 

Shikamaru answered, “It means a fight to the death or incapacitation. This isn’t like training, it’s closer to a mission than anything.”

“Yeah, a mission with all the odds stacked against you,” Ino said. 

“Jokes on them then!” Naruto dismissed. “That’s when I do my best work!” 

Ino would have liked to mock him for the pronouncement, but it was true. Naruto was a tank of chakra and stamina, but he tended to struggle in situations short of life and death. Shikamaru had once told her he thought it was linked to the chakra beast, but Ino liked to just not think about it. Naruto was good in a pinch, that’s all she needed to know. 

“We’re good, Naruto, but are we ready to face off against everyone else?” she asked. 

“And not just leaf nin, but genin from all the lands,” Shikamaru added. 

“Look,” Naruto said seriously, “Asuma recommended us for a reason. I say we trust that reason and go for it! Believe it!” 

“This is such a drag,” Shikamaru complained. 

Ino hid her smile and cocked her head to the side and said faux thoughtfully, “It’s either this or we keep doing D-rank missions. Do we really want to continue catching that damn cat and cleaning farm equipment?” 

Shikamaru winced and admitted, “You have a point.” 

Naruto shouted in victory and ran in small circles, “Yes, yes, yes! Chunin exams, here we come!” 

“We should all take naps to shore up our strength for these stupid things,” Shikamaru said as he walked away. But he didn’t head toward town, his feet were taking him toward their favored training ground. Ino smiled and ran with Naruto ahead of their lazy teammate. Mind made up, Ino felt good. She’d make her family proud, and her team too. 

The day for registration came faster than Ino would have liked, but a shinobi had to roll with the punches, so roll she would. Naruto and Shikamaru were already waiting outside the building for registration when she walked up. Shikamaru was slouching and his head was tilted up to look at the sky. Naruto was doing jumping jacks and talking a mile a minute. Ino just smiled and flicked her long perfect ponytail over her shoulder and asked, “You ready to do this, boys?” 

Shikamaru just groaned but Naruto nearly bowled her over when he hugged her and shouted in her ear. “Alright, alright, Naruto, lemme go!” Ino complained and shoved him off. “Are you trying to deafen me before the exams?” 

Naruto rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly and replied, “Sorry, Ino.” 

Ino waved the apology aside and gestured for him to lead the way. Their entrance into the building was consequently hurried and spastic, but Ino just let herself enjoy the carefree moment.

Eventually Naruto found the staircase that would lead them up to the third floor and room 301. Naruto was already half a floor up by the time Ino had taken two steps. She could catch up to him if she wanted, but her instincts were buzzing around the edges. When she looked to her side she found Shikamaru gazing intently around them at the stairwell. When he met her eyes he made a small hand sign, _genjutsu_. 

Ino inhaled sharply and nodded. “Should we break it..?”

“Or see where it leads?” Shikamaru asked. 

Above them the sound of a door slamming open made them both startle in place. Looking up, Ino just caught a glimpse of the orange blur that was Naruto as he vaulted through the door and out of the stairwell. “Well, I guess our decision is made then,” she said dryly. 

Shikamaru scoffed but it was too soft to be genuinely upset. “Let’s go get him.” 

They exited the stairwell and followed Naruto’s chakra down the hallway and around the corner to find a small crowd standing outside a door. The placard next to the door read 301. 

Shikamaru made a small noise of interest and understanding. Ino scanned the crowd for Naruto to find him working his way up to the front. She darted forward and tugged lightly at the sleeve of Naruto’s jacket. It wasn’t a harsh pull, just enough to get his attention. He turned to her and Ino said, “Regroup.” 

Naruto immediately stood a little straighter and made a scan of the area around them. Regroup was the command Asuma gave them when things started to take a bad turn. 

Naruto and Ino quickly fell back to where Shikamaru was waiting and watching the crowd. “What’s wrong?” Naruto asked. 

“This isn’t the third floor, genius,” Shikamaru snarked. 

“It’s not?” 

“You didn’t feel it when you were going up the stairs?” Ino asked. 

“Feel _what_?” Naruto asked, his eyes narrowing. 

“It’s a genjutsu, Nar,” she said. 

Naruto looked around them with wide blue eyes. “Really? Are you sure?” 

Shikamaru responded, “Of course we’re sure. Just because you’re terrible at sensing genjutsu doesn’t mean we are.” 

There were two individuals standing in front of the door and preventing anyone from entering. She looked just slightly to the left of where they were standing and focused like Asuma had taught her. ‘A shinobi’s instincts know the physical space around them even if the mind doesn’t’, he had told her. And the two boys standing at the door were taking up more physical space than their appearances would indicate. Most likely a simple genjutsu layer, though a henge would have been more successful. 

“Come on,” Shikamaru interrupted her thoughts. “Let’s check out the far stairwell. I’d rather avoid confrontation or difficulties of any kind.” 

“You’re just lazy,” Naruto accused.

“I am lazy, but it’s also common sense.” 

“Why’s there even a genjutsu on the stairs anyway? Seems kind of random doesn’t it?” 

“Oh, come on, Naruto,” Ino scolded. “It’s not just random, it’s part of the exams. Get it? Anyone who can’t find the registration room doesn’t get to advance to the first exam part.” 

Naruto made a wordless sound of dawning understanding and Ino rolled her eyes. How did this boy get so dumb? Why did she still love him so much? 

They were about to leave when Sasuke’s voice stopped her in her tracks. Where Sasuke went… Sakura followed. When she turned, the first thing her eyes stopped on was that pink hair she used to brush and pull back into braids. That felt like a lifetime ago. 

Sakura looked different. A little taller and her hair was longer. The young kunoichi was standing differently too, like someone had finally managed to teach her the importance of footwork and a stable standing position. She looked more confident and yet still so very small and afraid. 

Ino wasn’t paying attention to anything besides Sakura, so she startled a little when Shikamaru said, “Was Sasuke always this dramatic? Or is this a new trauma symptom we have to look forward to?” 

Ino looked over at Sasuke in confusion, just in time to see his kick get caught with ease by a lanky boy in green spandex. While that was a strange sight, her eyes were instead pulled to a different boy. Dark eyes and a long dark braid hanging down his back. “So that’s Team 7’s third member,” she mumbled to the boys next to her. 

“He looks kind of boring,” Naruto said. “Hey, why haven’t I seen him around the village before?” 

“He’s not from here,” Shikamaru replied. “I don’t know where he came from but it’s not here.” 

Glancing back at Sasuke it looked like the Uchiha was getting into an intense argument with the two disguised fellows guarding the door. Sakura was hemming and hawing behind him and looking like she was trying to distract him. Sasuke always did have a one track mind, though Ino was surprised that he hadn’t noticed the genjutsu. 

Sakura hadn’t either, which meant that Ino could steal Sasuke’s attention once again. It’d been a while since she could do that. Ino brought her hands together into the correct sign and then pushed her chakra out toward the area the genjutsu was affecting. It was a weak genjutsu, not anchored into the mind but rather in the physical space, which meant that at the touch of chakra it wavered and cracked away. 

The two, now visible, chunin that towered over the crowd looked in her direction and gave a slight nod. Several pairs of eyes followed the acknowledgement and Ino made sure to angle herself to her best side. Shikamaru huffed something sarcastic but Ino ignored it splendidly. “Alright, boys, let’s get outta here. No reason to stay around now that the testosterone levels have dropped back down to suitable levels,” she said. She didn’t look at Sakura, but it was hard.

She accepted Naruto’s loud and unnecessary compliments and treasured Shikamaru’s very quiet but sincere, “Unnecessary, but well done, Ino.” 

“That was splendid work you did! May I have your name?” someone shouted from right beside her. Ino turned warily to find two large eyebrows and a bull cut that were set atop a full green bodysuit. Ah, the kid who stopped Sasuke from fighting.

“Ino,” she replied. 

“Ino!” he shouted again. “A beautiful name for a beautiful kunoichi!” He then gave her a smile that flashed brightly and held out his hand to give her the most enthusiastic thumbs up she’d ever seen, and she was around Naruto daily. “Ino, please be my girlfriend!”

Shikamaru snorted in amusement and Ino couldn’t even find it in herself to glare at him. She was shocked into silence. 

“What?” Naruto asked for her. “Who even are you?”

“I am the handsome devil of Konoha, Rock Lee, and I vow to protect you with my life!” Lee exclaimed. Ino wondered if he always talked this loudly or if it was a nervous tick. 

She let her gaze drift over his leg warmers, up his legs and body, she paused at his hand wrappings and ended at his large round eyes. She chuckled. 

“With _those_ eyebrows, no way!” Sakura interjected. “You’re such a weirdo.” 

Rock Lee’s hand fell a little bit and that bright smile dimmed. Ino rolled her eyes and stepped forward. “Baby boy, I would destroy you,” she said not unkindly. It was the truth. Lee’s eyes held nothing but earnestness. His expression was too open for her and his body language was easy to read. She could see the slight shake of the arm and the small step back his left foot made when he’d asked. 

“You are a strong shinobi, I have no doubt! Your awareness of the genjutsu is proof enough of that. But I also am a great ninja!” That smile was back in full light. 

Her lips twitched in amusement. Sakura butted in once again though, “She’s not interested in a weirdo like you! No girl would be!” 

Ino glared over Lee’s shoulder at her old ‘friend’. “Shut up, Sakura. If you hadn’t noticed, no one asked for your input.” 

Ino turned her attention back to those dark eager eyes. Oh no, she was not the girl for this angel of a boy. “Rock Lee, my name is Ino Yamanaka and I have an affinity for psycho-analysis and manipulation. You seem like the kind of guy that would work far too well on.” Lee looked confused and disappointed. He looked too much like Naruto at that moment and her heart gave a pang. When had she gone so soft?

Sakura scoffed and began whispering to Sasuke and her other teammate loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough to not be understandable. “You vow to protect me with your life, yes?” 

Lee’s attention snapped away from his feet and back to her so fast it startled her. “Yes, I swear on the youth of my spirit!” 

She could hear Shikamaru chuckling quietly and shushing a confused Naruto. “Then I vow to protect you from petty kunoichi and assholes, alright? It’s not the answer you were looking for, but I like you, Lee. You’re cute.” She paused and then added, “Don’t ask me again though.” 

Lee was smiling once again and exclaimed, “You are truly a passionate individual, Ino Yamanaka! I take your words to heart and will use your kindness to bolster my own spirit and strive to become stronger!” 

Ino didn’t even bother trying to parse that out. She just patted Lee’s shoulder and said, “Okay.” 

She turned to walk away again but Lee sped forward faster than she could see and extended his arm, “Let me walk you to the room, Ino!” He looked conflicted for a moment as he looked back at the people still gathered in the hall. 

“She can walk down a hallway by herself!” Naruto objected. 

“I did not mean to offend!” Lee shouted. He held up his hands in surrender and looked panicked. 

She patted his shoulder once again and said, “It’s okay, Lee. I’m not insulted, but it does look like you have something else you wanted to do.” His eyes flicked over to Sasuke. Ino made a mental note of it. “I’ll see you later, Lee.” 

Then she escaped to Shikamaru’s side and Naruto pulled them both around the nearest corner. He looked upset but Ino knew it would pass in a couple moments. “Come on, Nar, let’s find this room.” Just as she expected his expression smoothed out into eager excitement and he bounded away. Things were as they should be. 

“Only a few minutes in and you’ve already got a proposal,” Shikamaru teased as the two of them followed Naruto. “Ten year old you would have been so proud.”

“It wasn’t a proposal, you idiot.” 

“It was a spectacle, that’s for sure.” 

She pointed threateningly at Shikamaru and replied, “Remember, Shika, I vowed to protect him from assholes.” 

Shikamaru laughed for longer than she thought was necessary. They’d already reached the stairs by the time he stopped. “For such a troublesome task this is turning out to be amusing,” he managed to say when he’d caught his breath. 

Ino was saved from having to reply by Naruto grabbing her left arm and Shikamaru’s right arm. He dragged them up the stairs and around the corner to the real room 301. 

Ino looked at the double doors and had her first moment of panic. “Somehow, I doubt the rest of this will be so amusing.” 

Naruto pushed the doors open so hard they smacked into the walls inside with a resounding bang. Every head turned to look at them. 

Naruto walked past her and into the room with all the confidence he always had. She followed him with nimble steps and her head held high. 

“How’d you guys get here? They’ll really let anyone take these exams, huh?” mocked a familiar voice. 

Ino turned to see Kiba giving them a skeptical glare. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and, as always, his canine teeth glinted in the fluorescent light even with his mouth closed. Akamaru was laid on Kiba’s head with the hood pulled over him. For the most part, he was just as she remembered from the academy. Loud and brash, sharp teeth and small eyes, she would bet if she got close enough he would still smell of wet dog. 

“I didn’t know they let dogs take the exams, and oh look, Akamaru’s here too,” Ino said with a smile. 

Shikamaru sighed as he stepped up next to her. “Oh, what a drag.” 

Ino scanned the other two members of Team 8. Shino was just the same, nearly every bit of skin hidden away. Body language hard to read and eyes always behind dark glass. Creepy and unreadable. She didn’t like him. 

Hinata was a surprise though. The girl’s hair was longer and her jacket was open to show a mesh armor shirt underneath and a choker necklace with two beads on it just visible over her hitai-ate. The most surprising thing was the way she stood, slouched over like a carbon copy of Kiba’s posture. Hinata’s light eyes still avoided Ino’s but she also didn’t shrink away. Ino found herself duly impressed. Apparently getting away from her family had been a good thing for Hinata. 

“Hinata, Shino,” Ino greeted them with a nod each. 

“H-hi Ino, Shikamaru…” Hinata blushed and her eyes fell to the floor as she added breathily, “Naruto.” 

“Hey, mutt,” Ino said. 

Kiba looked up at her with his pointy teeth bared. “Hey, bitch.” 

Ino smiled in earnest and his own mouth twitched as if to do the same. “Did you know Sasuke and Sakura are downstairs? Looks like all us rookies made it this year.” 

Kiba’s eyes narrowed. “You messing with me, Ino?” 

Naruto interjected, “They’re here! And I finally saw their teammate! Quiet guy, long hair, very frowny.” 

“His name is Sumaru,” Shino said. 

Shikamaru asked, “What do we know about him?” 

“Not much, he was a transfer. Got private tutoring for the month before graduation and the genin team assignments.” 

“Only a month? That means he was shinobi trained before he got here. That certainly narrows down the geographic possibilities.” 

Naruto interrupted to ask, “Is it normal to get transfers then? I’ve never heard of it.” He shrugged dismissively. 

“You haven’t heard of most things, Naruto,” Kiba taunted. “But no, transfers usually only happen during emergencies. Maybe something happened to his home, who knows.” 

Shikamaru groaned. “Just what we need, the last Uchiha matched up with some other gloomy traumatized boy.” 

The doors opened behind him and Ino noted the way that the doors didn’t slam into the wall. Sasuke, Sumaru and Sakura trudged in. Sasuke looked a little scuffed up around the edges and that highly interested her. When she glanced at Sakura it was to find the other girl’s wide eyes fixed on Sasuke. 

When the three newcomers naturally gravitated towards the other rookies, she smiled. Human conditioning still counted when it came to overly dramatic downer boys, good to know. 

“Hn,” Sasuke greeted them. 

“I knew this was gonna be a drag,” Shikamaru said, “but I didn’t know it would be this lame.” 

“Well, what do you know, looks like the whole gang’s back together again,” Kiba said. 

Ino didn’t hesitate to drape herself over Sasuke’s back and croon, “I’m so glad you’re back, Sasuke-kun! I was hoping you would show up.” Naruto was yelling at Kiba but she tuned it out. “I’ve missed those brooding good looks of yours.” 

Shikamaru sighed so heavily that she could hear part of his soul die. She didn’t hide her smile at the noise but she did make it crooked and flirty as she leaned even more into the Uchiha. 

“Hey, Porker, back off! He’s mine!” Sakura shouted. 

“Looks like you’ve got a few more wrinkles on that billboard brow you call a forehead, Sakura.” 

“Leave my forehead out of it!” 

“But how could I, it takes up so much space?” 

“Wanna introduce us to your friend, Sasuke?” Shikamaru interrupted. 

Sumaru answered for himself, “Name’s Sumaru. Don’t bother introducing yourselves, I don’t bother engaging with people who waste my time.” 

Ino whipped around, probably hitting the side of Sasuke’s face with her ponytail as she slid off his back, and glared at Sumaru. It was Naruto that jumped on the comment though. He spun away from Kiba mid sentence, and gave the mystery rookie a once over. “What’s your problem?” he demanded. Within a second Naruto was skidding into his normal spot, between her and Shikamaru, and they stood as a team. “You been around Sasuke’s sulking too much or something?” 

Ino snorted accidentally as she tried to not laugh but no one noticed. Sumaru was yelling over the sound. “My problem is people who don’t take things seriously! And you, blondy, seem like just the guy who jokes about everything and wears bright colors as a see through attempt to get attention. It’s pathetic.” 

Shikamaru made a step forward and Ino shifted her own weight, ready to back him up. Naruto was already shouting again though and Shikamaru settled for scowling at Sumaru with all the effort he usually didn’t bother putting into anything. Ino shifted a little closer to Naruto as he shouted back, “I wear orange so people will know I’m coming for them! You’ll learn to fear it too!” Ino sighed and tugged at an orange sleeve as a reminder for Naruto to behave. She didn’t want to break up a fight right now. 

“Fear it?” Kiba asked. “Fear what? That you’ll make me laugh myself to death?” 

“I’m a genin just like you, Kiba.” Naruto pointed at the metal plate of his hitai-ate. “I passed just like you!” 

“Well, not _just_ like me. I mean, I didn’t get tricked and nearly killed getting mine. I didn’t need to.” 

Naruto growled deep in his chest and Ino gave him a startled look. Why was he getting so worked up to the point of a sound like that? It was just Kiba being an ass, it was basically a game at this point. Naruto looked at the floor, his face hidden from view. She gave Shikamaru a glance but he seemed just as confused as she was. They both moved closer to their teammate and Ino glared at Sumaru some more, just in case. 

Naruto snapped his head up so fast that Ino was sure that if he’d hit someone with that block he called a head, they’d be unconscious on the ground right now. He pointed an angry shaking finger at Kiba. “I’m sick of you underestimating me.” Naruto spun on his heel and directed his finger to the room at large. “I came here to win and that’s what I’ll do! Anyone who gets in my way will regret it, believe it! I’ll beat everyone one of you!” 

Shikamaru sighed and leaned around Naruto’s quivering frame to share a suffering look with her. Her lips curled with affection as she looked at her friend. She’d fight to make sure that brightness never left her boy. But still. She smacked a flat hand to the back of his head and scolded, “Are you trying to get everyone to hate us?” 

Naruto gave her a wounded look and a small shrug. Shikamaru chuckled and asked, “Feel better?” 

The blond brightened and said happily, “Actually, I do!” 

“You’re just making my point,” Sumaru pointed out, but Naruto couldn’t hear him over his own voice as he chatted at Shikamaru. Ino left Naruto to Shikamaru and the others as she slipped away and moved to Sumaru’s side. She leaned over near his ear and said softly, “I’d watch your tongue, newbie.” Ino pulled back just enough to give him her best innocent smile. “You wouldn’t be the first to underestimate Nar here,” she gestured at Naruto who was now once again arguing loudly with Kiba. She didn’t sense any true malice there. “And you won’t be the first to regret it.” 

Sumaru gave her a flat look to counter her smile but she didn’t care. Naruto could stick up for himself in a fight, Sumaru would just learn. This way, he couldn’t say he hadn’t been given a warning.

Then Ibiki showed up and before she knew it they were all sitting at assigned spots and being watched by the chunin set up around the edges of the room. It was unnerving. She hummed softly under her breath as she thought. It _was_ unnerving, but it was also complete overkill. Ibiki was watching them all as well, but he looked oddly expectant. He was good at keeping his muscles relaxed and loose, harder to read someone who was a blank slate, but she was a Yamanaka. The tips of his fingers kept running over the cloth of his coat surreptiously and he was rocking back and forth, just ever so slightly, on the balls of his feet. 

She glanced at Shikamaru who was already looking at her expectantly. She raised a brow that he just returned. Shikamaru had that patient smugness about him, the kind that he exhibited when he was waiting for her to catch up to him. 

She looked back at the chunins and frowned. They were attentive and still. She looked down at her test and noted once again how impossible the questions were. Her father wouldn’t understand half of it. Shikamaru’s father could probably do it, maybe. Depends on if learning this stuff had ever interested him in the past. She sighed and looked around again. As far as she could tell the Ibiki guy wanted them to cheat. 

She sat up straight and returned to her study of Ibiki. She knew that name. Her dad mentioned it here and there. What was it? Ibiki Morino. He worked at T&I, and everyone who worked at T&I ‘had a few bolts loose in the shed’, as her aunt would say. What it really meant though, was that they liked to play games. This test was a game. And the only game she could see being plausible here, was… cheating. He really _did_ want them to cheat. Huh. 

She looked back over at Shikamaru who was giving her a lazy grin. He pointed at the guy in front of him who was clicking away with his pencil on the paper. She nodded and waited a few minutes until the man’s writing slowed down a bit. When the intense clacking of his writing became lighter she framed his figure in the square of her hands, gathered her soul up, and shoved it out through the window of her hands and into him. 

She distantly felt her own body slump over, her head softly hitting the desk. She looked with her newly possessed eyes and saw several of the proctors look over at her and then away. It looked like she’d just given up and banged her head down in despair. She shrugged with shoulders that weren’t hers. She hadn’t thought that far ahead, but she’d take whatever she could get. 

Then she focused and memorized as many answers as she could. She only slipped back to her own body when she was confident of at least five of the questions. The moment she was back she picked up her pencil and set to work. 

Cheating in a room this carefully monitored was giving her an adrenaline rush similar to a physical fight. The numbers she copied down were a little messy thanks to the minute shaking of her arms and legs. 

When she finished writing she looked over to Shikamaru again with a weary expression. She wasn’t looking forward to using her jutsu back to back. It was exhausting. She didn’t just use chakra, she used her own life energy, and she was not looking forward to doing it twice more in the span of fifteen minutes. He gave her a grimace of understanding and she sighed. She formed the sign and pushed her soul out and into Shikamaru. 

Being in Shikamaru’s body was the closest she got to familiarity during a mind transfer. He was the one who had been a willing guinea pig for her when she was first learning. He was the one that she knew best, inside and out. So being in his body, while it didn’t feel _right_ , felt the least wrong. She took a moment to breathe deeply and then set to work. Shikamaru had left cheeky notes in the margins of his paper for her and she wrote her own snarky answers back or scribbled angrily over them depending on her whim. 

When she returned to her body, her bones were subtly throbbing and she had a headache. The pain sat just behind her eyes and made her feel like she was staring into the sun at all times. Signs that she should slow down, let herself recuperate. She glanced at the clock and bit her lip. Then she formed the hand sign around Naruto’s distant figure, gathered her soul up into a small compacted ball, and slipped into his body. 

She shuddered the moment the jutsu settled. She hated transferring into Naruto because his chakra, which was already abrasive from outside his body, felt like open flames when she was inside his body. The energy crackled across her skin and her teeth gritted in anxiety, which just made her head twinge in pain.

And on top of that she could feel the residual panic that Naruto must have been stewing in moments before. It was so strong she actually choked on her first breath and sent herself into a coughing fit. The proctors glanced at her but then looked away. 

As the coughing tapered off, Hinata leaned over and asked, “Are you okay, Naruto?” Ino couldn’t hide her grimace at the words. She was very good at hiding emotions or fighting reactions in her own body, but someone else’s was much harder. Hinata’s voice was just so _breathy_. It felt like she was gasping each word out and it grated on Ino. Maybe hanging out with Kiba and Shino would eventually affect her voice box too. 

“If you want--you could-- Naruto, if-- you can look at my answers.” Hinata slid her paper a little to the side so part of it poked out from underneath her arm. Ino narrowed her eyes at Hinata and made a mental note to talk to Naruto about telling Hinata he wasn’t interested. 

“Naruto will be fine,” she hissed with Naruto’s mouth and her voice. Her irritation and the reverberation of too much chakra and panic made the words short and sharp, but she didn’t care if Hinata took offense. The Hyuuga may have loosened up a bit, but she had a lot of progress to go before Ino would find being around her bearable. 

Hinata jerked away from her and hid her face behind her hair. She didn’t look back in Ino’s direction once. Ino just got to work. 

The numbers she wrote on Naruto’s page were even messier than before. It didn’t matter, it was still better than Naruto’s normal handwriting anyway. She flipped the page over when she was done and left an encouraging note for Naruto. She signed it with a heart and a warning to not mess anything up. She looked around at the proctors in paranoia and caught a glimpse of Hinata’s necklace. The beads had something engraved in them with delicate gold detailing around the outside. Did her family give it to her? It didn’t look like a Hyuuga heirloom, nor did she think Hinata would be given anything. 

She filed it away as something to think about later and then let herself fade out of Naruto’s too hot and too intense body. As her soul settled back into her own skin, the first thing she felt was relief, like a huge weight had been lifted from her chest at the same time as a refreshing breeze blew over her. The second was the stabbing sensation behind her eyes. The third was the ache of her every bone and maybe even some that didn’t exist. 

She really hoped the rest of the exams weren’t like this one. She felt like she’d been beaten up by ANBU. She didn’t bother to move from the slumped position over her table. But she did turn her head a little to the side so that she could see Shikamaru. He was studying her already and she just blinked tiredly at him. He made the hand sign for _Report_ and she feebly gave the okay sign back. He didn’t look convinced. 

She spent the next few minutes just resting with her eyes closed. When the tenth question came she knew it was a trick. Not because she could read Ibiki or the proctors or anyone, she didn’t even try to, just kept her pounding head pressed to the tabletop. She knew it was a trick because it was the only option that made sense. It was the sort of game that her father liked to play when training her and her cousins. A specific pressure exerted on an individual that made their confidence waiver, and without confidence a shinobi was nothing but dead meat. 

Then Naruto’s hand came up in the air and Ino’s breath caught. Her hands were instantly in the rectangle she’d need to direct her soul, though she knew she’d regret it. A glance at Shikamaru showed him doing the same for his own shadow possession. Naruto would be devastated if they were taken out of the running in the first stage. 

Naruto slammed his hand down onto the desk and shouted, “Don’t ever… Don’t EVER underestimate me! I don’t quit and I don’t run! That’s my nindo, my ninja way!” 

Ino gave herself a mental slap for expecting anything different. Naruto was too bull headed to give up now. That was enough like confidence. For most situations at least. She fell back into her chair and was reminded painfully of her terrible life choices when everything throbbed with the movement. 

When Ibiki explained that there was no tenth question and that the answers didn’t matter she was vaguely surprised. Not about the tenth question, but about the meaninglessness of the first nine. She felt a little silly for spending so much time memorizing them. She should have seen it coming, it made sense in the twisted way that everything at T&I made sense. Ibiki continued talking, explaining the reasoning behind his decisions and Ino went to sleep. He couldn’t tell her anything she hadn’t already figured out. 

When she was woken up by a worried Shikamaru she said, “Nap. Now.” 

He just nodded and picked her up from the chair. She wasn’t so bad off as to really need to be carried, but it felt nice so she just leaned into Shikamaru and went back to sleep. 

When she woke up, it was in a large soft bed that smelled like soil and ramen. She smiled and snuggled further into the blanket that she knew was bright orange. When she carefully opened one eye she was happy to find the sun wasn’t streaming through the window. The moon just winked merrily at her and gave her mercy. Her body still felt a little sore but her headache was gone. Her soul had recharged and now she was hungry. 

She rolled over a couple times to get to the edge of the bed. She and Shikamaru had managed to save up to get a much larger, much softer bed for Naruto’s apartment after a few too many accidental sleepovers. Ino had quickly gotten tired of sleeping squished into the wall or on the floor. 

A soft conversation brushed against her ears and she smiled up at the window. It was cracked open and she took a long inhale as a breeze blew softly through. She could smell wet dirt and healthy green plants. She rolled back across the bed and closer to the window, where she had started. She softly opened the window all the way and slipped out onto the orange tiled roof. There, just to the left lay a small garden that Ino had installed and cared for. It was full of different wild flowers in shades of bright pinks and oranges with a line of herbs off to the side. 

And sitting sprawled out next to the garden were her boys. Shikamaru was laid back on the tiles and looking up at the stars with one leg over the edge of the roof dangling and idly swinging. Naruto sat leaning back on his hands and looking out over the village. His shoes and jacket were missing and Ino was hit with how small he was. He was so loud and moved so much that it was easy to forget he was still a child. They all were. Children that could die in service to their village. Ino wasn’t as upset by it now as she was a year ago, not volatilely at least. It still kept her up at night, thinking of the way that she could break down an enemy’s mind before she finished puberty. The way Naruto was so swallowed up by the shinobi culture that he couldn’t see it for what it was. How Shikamaru’s laziness wouldn’t be seen as a character flaw in a civilian city, but merely a character trait. 

She felt it most keenly when she saw Naruto like this though, small and quiet and seemingly at peace. The burning of a disappointment in herself and everyone around her. A shame that was so ingrained that she struggled to find it but could feel it pressing down on her whenever she was given a moment to breath. And yet. Here she was, ready to fight for her home and her family. Looking forward to it in fact. How much of that was her and how much of it was the world she lived in? She didn’t know. 

She doubted she ever would. 

But she still had her team. She padded over and sat down gently between the two. She didn’t look at the stars or at the village, she just closed her eyes. She could be as loud as Naruto and far more opinionated, but just like Naruto, she could appreciate a moment of quiet and calm. She pushed her thoughts away with surprising success and listened to the sounds of the village and to Shikamaru’s long even breathes. 

After a few minutes she asked, “So what happened after the test?” 

Naruto launched into a dramatic explanation of Anko and wall breaking. 

“We don’t have a location yet though?” Ino asked. 

“Asuma said he’ll tell us in the morning,” Shikamaru said.  
Ino scowled, “That’s not fair! I bet a bunch of the other senseis told their genin.” 

“But those genin weren’t us! We don’t need a hint or a sneak peek to crush all those other losers!” Naruto exclaimed, though softer than normal. 

“It’s going to be something about physical abilities,” Shikamaru said. “We’ve already had the mind test, the next is the body.” 

“How do you know? You said there were three stages?” Naruto asked. 

“The third is always the same. Knockout rounds at the arena,” Ino said. 

“Exactly,” Shikamaru nodded and he propped himself up a bit with his arms as he looked over at them. “So tomorrow is going to be about physical strength and other in-the-field shinobi skills.” 

“Like jutsus?” Naruto asked nervously. She remembered that Naruto’s graduation jutsu exam hadn’t gone well. 

“Not likely,” Shikamaru said. “At least, not directly. It’s more likely they’ll put us into a situation that makes us _use_ our jutsus.” 

Naruto relaxed but Ino grew more tense. “I don’t like the sound of that.” 

“I don’t think you’re supposed to.” 

“I don’t think this is helping,” Naruto said. “I think what would help is if we went to Ichiraku’s for dinner. As preparation for tomorrow.” 

“And how would eating ramen help us?” Ino asked grumpily. “You’re the only here who can subsist on noodles and broth and those little swirly things that sound like your name.” 

“Hey, there’s pork in there too, and egg and--” 

“Yes, we’ve heard your glowing words on the nutritional value of ramen before. You’re still wrong though,” Shikamaru said. “Come on, I’ll cook something for us.” He stood up slowly and passed by Ino as he headed back to the window. 

Naruto scooted over next to Ino and laid his head on her shoulder. She took another deep calm breath and looked at the moon. They’d come a long way in a year. They’d become a real team. A team like Asuma talked about or Iruka tried to explain to them all. 

The chunin exams were about who was the best shinobi, and Iruka-sensei always said that the strongest weapon a shinobi had was teamwork. Well, they had that in spades. And they had Naruto, so really, should she be worried? 

She placed a soft kiss on Naruto’s head and wrinkled her nose when his rebellious hair tickled it. Then she none too gently shoved him off her and retreated through the window and into the apartment before he could retaliate. 

She walked into the kitchen where Shikamaru was standing in front of the fridge and staring into it. “What, did we forget to go grocery shopping with him? Is there just old mayonnaise and expired eggs again?” She peeked over his shoulder to see it was low stocked but not barren. 

He sighed and started grabbing the carton of eggs and the random vegetables Naruto had shoved to the back. “Omelettes it is,” he said. 

She chuckled and turned to put the kettle on the far burner so the water could heat as he cooked. Naruto was doing something out on the roof still, probably jumping jacks or running in circles. He usually just raced around the village streets, but Ino guessed he wanted to be close tonight. 

She leaned on the counter and watched Shikamaru cook. It was always strange to see him in a half apron, that she’d bought him for his birthday, and in the kitchen. The first time he’d pushed her and Naruto out of the kitchen she hadn’t known what to expect. Sure, nothing she or Naruto cooked was edible, but how much better would he be? 

Much better, was the answer. She’d asked him about it and he’d just muttered something about his mom being a terrifying woman in the kitchen. Ino didn’t really care why he was good at it, she was just glad he was motivated enough to actually cook. 

She hummed as she turned and opened the right most cupboard. On the shelves sat a few cups. One was a faded blue with a large crack down one side and it matched the tea kettle perfectly. Naruto had found them both in the trash when he was much younger and brought them home. They were the only tea cup and kettle he’d had until Ino and Shikamaru had barged into his life. Now there were three other cups, all mismatched and chosen with intense focus by herself. 

One was pale yellow and made of fragile thin china. It had a cherry blossom painted over the side, its branches reaching around the curve of the cup. She put her favorite tea mix at the bottom of that one and grabbed the next. This one was brown and textured to look like fur. When she’d first seen it she thought it was supposed to be from a bear or something but it reminded her so much of the deer at the Nara compound that she had to get it. She put Shikamaru’s gross bitter tea mix in that one. The last was orange, but not the vibrant orange Naruto surrounded himself with. It was a pale and gentle orange that turned a little darker on the inside of the cup. There were a couple chips on the rim that hadn’t been there when she’d bought it. She dropped a random tea mix in that one because Naruto could never tell the difference anyway. 

She took the cups a few feet to the right and placed them on the table in front of the chair each belonged in front of. Then she sat down and waited for Shikamaru to finish up and yell at Naruto to come inside. When the predicted shout did come from the kitchen, she quickly grabbed the kettle from the stove and filled their cups. 

She was surprised to turn and find Naruto already coming inside. It usually took a few yells. As soon as his butt hit the chair he was talking. “So I was thinking, just now, out there,” he pointed at the window. “That test we took, it really got me, I had no idea we were supposed to cheat like you guys did. And a lot of people were surprised when they realized they were _supposed_ to cheat even though they _did_ cheat, you know?” 

Ino nodded and Shikamaru grunted through a large mouthful of omelette. 

“But I couldn’t make myself cheat, I tried even, before Ino mind whammed me. It felt like I would either get someone else in trouble or it was, I don’t know, dishonest, you know?” 

“Cheating is dishonest,” Shikamaru pointed out. 

“Right, so why did so many people do it even though they didn’t know that was the point?” 

Ino paused. “Because they needed to pass.” 

“Yeah, so?” 

“It’s called using all the advantages you have,” Shikamaru said. “A shinobi is expected to turn even the worst situations to his favor.” 

“So ninjas are supposed to cheat then? Like, not just on tests?” 

“I think the cheating was more of a metaphor, you know? A difficult situation where the end result meant bending a few rules in the present.” Ino took a bite of her omelette, but when she swallowed it felt cold. 

“The end justifies the means, right?” Naruto asked. 

Ino’s skin chilled and goosebumps erupted up her arms. Shikamaru’s cup stopped halfway to his mouth. “Naruto, that’s not--” she didn’t know what to say. 

“But that’s kind of what happened to me, right?” Naruto asked again. He shoved some omelette in his mouth and chewed while he thought. Ino looked at Shikamaru but he gave an uncomfortable shrug. He made a hand signal for _Take lead_ , then pointed at her. 

She shook her head adamantly and made a helpless face. 

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s very shinobi-y,” Naruto broke up the silent argument as his focus returned to his friends. “I don’t think I agree with that Ibiki guy, at least not fully. I mean, I’m all for changing things in our favor or whatever, but the means have to answer to the end, you know?” 

Ino smiled and nodded, “Yeah, I know.” 

“It’s funny, actually,” Shikamaru said after he took a drink. “You passed that test because of your nindo.” 

“I don’t quit and I don’t run,” Ino parrotted Naruto’s words back. 

“But that also goes along with what you’re saying. You wouldn’t take the easy or obvious way to fix a hard problem. That would be running. You wouldn’t let someone else deal with any of your problems either, that’d be quitting.” Shikamaru gave a short smile and ended with, “So if you stay true to your nindo, I think you’ll be okay.” 

Naruto was quiet for a moment as he digested those words. He scratched at his arms, bare without his jacket, and Ino stiffened. But the scratching was soft and left only slight white lines from the pressure. 

Naruto’s beaming smile once he caught up was priceless. “You’re right, Shika!” 

Ino watched in amusement as Shikamaru almost spilled his tea down his front when that smile focused its rays of sunshine directly at him. 

“I usually am,” Shikamaru responded as he used a second hand to steady his cup. 

Naruto’s grin softened and he replied, “Yeah. I’m really lucky to have you guys on my team.” 

Ino almost laughed. She and Shikamaru had gone through a lot of work to _make sure_ they were on the same team, but the sentiment remained true. She was lucky she stood up for Naruto that day. She was lucky Shikamaru had put up with all her brattiness when they were young. 

“You’re not so bad yourself, short stuff,” Ino replied. “Now shut up and eat your omelette. Any further soul searching can be done tomorrow. Or in your sleep. Either one works.” 

“There’s a joke in there somewhere,” Shikamaru said. “About Yamanakas _soul_ searching.”

Ino just chuckled and finished her dinner. It went down easier now, delicious and warm. She thought it might taste better for the company, but she refused to think of anything that sappy.


	2. The Forest of Death!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ino, Shikamaru, and Naruto have to be at the top of their game for the second part of the chunin exams. They're up against real teams now, not their own minds. Will they rise to the challenge?

Ino signed the waiver that Anko had passed out to everyone and stared at the forest of death. She had mixed feelings about this test. She and Shikamaru’s jutsus were actually a good matchup for this,  _ if _ they could catch anyone. The real problem was the survival part of the whole thing. Naruto was a village boy, could barely live without instant food and couldn’t tell North from South. Shikamaru would have some schema about survival 101 but it was just the basics they were taught at the academy. She could identify a lot of poisonous and safely edible plants, but who knew what kind of ecosystem was maintained inside those trees. 

She sighed and looked at her waiver. So far their capability was high but their survivability was low. And frankly, the second seemed more important in the long run. 

“We’ll need to move quickly,” Shikamaru said. 

Ino nodded, “As much of the surviving part of this test we can avoid the better.” 

“We’re great at surviving!” Naruto argued. 

“We’re great at surviving missions, Nar, we aren’t great at survival.” 

“So we find someone fast, neutralize them, take the scroll, and beat it to the tower,” Shikamaru summarized. 

“That’s the whole point of the test, congrats,” Ino drawled. 

“Yes, but a lot of these teams will settle in for the long haul. Tactic wise, it’s smarter to wait for your target to get tired and let down their guard. We won’t have that luxury here. We have to get a scroll soon or our chances at getting another scroll, and even coming out of this in one piece, drastically drops.” 

“Still not much of a plan.”   
Shikamaru shot her an annoyed glare but gave a nod, “It’s what we got for now.” 

“Then let’s get going!” Naruto broke in and pulled them toward the line for turning in their waivers. When they grabbed their scroll Shikamaru immediately handed it to Naruto and Ino couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on the blond’s face. 

“You’re our heavy hitter, Naruto,” Shikamaru said. “Which means you’ll be the hardest for someone to take the scroll from.” 

Naruto grinned and stuffed the small earth scroll into his pack. “Sure thing, Shika. I won’t let you down, believe it!” Shikamaru rubbed at the back of his neck and looked away from both Naruto and Ino, which made her chuckle some more. 

“Alright, boys, let’s get going,” she said and steered them out of the small tent and toward the next checkpoint where a chunin was standing ready to give them their gate assignment. As they walked along the perimeter of the forest of death to find their assigned gate #20, she realized just how large the place was. And also how small. 

It felt big as they walked past gate after gate. Some of them already had teams standing impatiently by. But the idea of having so many shinobi she didn’t have any real information on in those trees with her...it didn’t feel nearly large enough. 

Naruto was transfixed by the trees and Ino wondered what it was he was looking for. He nearly tripped over a root because of his focus. Ino shoved him off of her after he used her to break his fall and snapped, “At least try to look like a proper shinobi, Naruto.” 

“I am a proper shinobi!” Naruto retaliated. Ino just gestured back at the root that had tripped him up. “It’s not like this is a life or death situation right now!” 

“It will be if you keep pushing me!” 

“What a drag,” Shikamaru complained as he dropped back behind the two to let them argue. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, they reached their gate a couple steps forward and were met by a chunin attendant. 

“You understand the rules, yes?” the chunin asked.

“I thought there were no rules?” Ino asked snidely. 

“You have five days. You need two scrolls to pass, one earth, one heaven. Don’t open the scrolls. Get to the tower. Got it? Good.” Then the chunin left without another glance at them.

“Well, he was a bucket of fun,” Ino complained. 

“How are we supposed to know when it starts?” Naruto yelled after the chunin. 

“I assume there will be an announcement,” Shikamaru replied. 

“What if the other teams are all already in there though?” Naruto asked. 

“We just saw a bunch of teams standing in front of their gates as we walked here,” Ino pointed out. 

“That doesn’t mean they’re still there.” 

“You’re like a dog, Naruto. No object permanence.” 

“Well, if he had no object permanence he wouldn’t remember them at all,” Shikamaru interjected. 

“Stop taking his side, Shikamaru!” 

“I’m not taking his side, I’m just pointing out the flaw in your argument, Ino!” 

“Yeah, cause you’re so good at pointing out flaws, you lazy ass!” 

A screech of metal and all three of them looked over to find their gate swinging open. The exam had begun. Apparently. 

Ino looked left and right but the gates were too far apart to tell if the other teams were still in place or not. She shrugged and said, “Think that’s our cue.” 

Shikamaru kicked a rock through the gate and muttered, “What a drag.” 

“Let’s go!” Naruto charged through and into the trees beyond. Ino sped after him in an effort to not lose her teammate a minute into the exams, and she could hear Shikamaru following her. 

“Where are you going?” Ino shouted at Naruto after a few minutes of break neck running. 

“He won’t know,” Shikamaru said. 

“I don’t know!” Naruto shouted back. 

Well, they weren’t going with the stealth approach. Ino put on a burst of speed so she could catch up with Naruto, and then grabbed his arm forcefully to pull him to a stop. It took a couple moments of her heels dragging through the dirt, but they stopped. 

“We need a plan,” Shikamaru said as soon as they were stationary. 

“I thought we had a plan?” Naruto replied. “Move fast and hit early.” 

“I meant to move fast _toward_ another team.”   
“But we don’t know where they are.” Naruto was vibrating with frantic energy and his chakra was flashing out in random directions. Ino wasn’t concerned, but it was distracting, and she wondered if anyone else could feel it too. She double checked the area around them with a quick visual sweep. 

“It’s better to keep moving then stand still," Naruto insisted. 

“Not necessarily,” Shikamaru countered. “Especially when what you’re trying to find is also moving.” 

“So what, you want us to sit here and do nothing?!” 

“I want us to take a moment and think things through. We could start a grid search or a spiral search, both would be more effective than running without a target.” 

“I have a target!” 

“A known target!” 

Naruto scowled and ran his hands through his hair. “Fine!” He kicked the ground and pouted. “I’m going to do a quick perimeter check though,” he added. 

Shikamaru paused but then nodded his assent. Naruto always did the perimeter checks because he had surprisingly good eyes and better instincts. Plus he was never low on energy like she and Shikamaru. Naruto disappeared in a flash. 

“He hasn’t been this wound up for months,” Shikamaru complained. 

“The chunin exams are a big deal,” Ino replied. “And you know how he is when he wants to prove himself.” 

“He doesn’t need to prove anything.” 

“ _ We _ know that.” 

“But he doesn’t.” 

“So let’s focus on this plan of yours,” Ino prompted. Shikamaru sat at the base of the nearest tree and brought his hands together in a small circle, thumb to thumb and fingers to fingers. Ino settled in to wait. She paced in a small square around Shikamaru and kept her ears primed for any foreign sounds. It was hard though, because everything was foreign in here. Even the leaves rustling felt different. 

She was just starting to worry about her missing teammate when Naruto came bursting through the bushes with a shout, “I found another team!” He beamed and panted at Ino and it almost made her smile back. “Come on!” He made a broad gesture at Ino that conveyed both excitement and his desire for her to follow. 

It looked like Naruto, but she knew Naruto. The boy in front of her was bursting with energy just like he should be, but it was too focused. Naruto would be scanning the area, trying to talk, walk, and run at the same time. Not standing still and looking at her like that. She stared for another long moment. There were no aborted attempts at scratching, no jostling of muscles. But that wasn’t what made her skin crawl. No, this person could have passed for Naruto except for one thing. 

“You’ve got the wrong chakra, but nice try,” Shikamaru said from his new position by her side. “You’re not Naruto, so what do you want?” 

“What are you talking about?” Naruto asked as he stepped closer. “Come on, guys! We’ll miss them!” 

“If you can replicate him this well, then that means you’ve been pretty close to him at some point,” Ino said. “Which means you’ve felt his chakra yourself. You may be able to mimic other ninja’s energies, but not Naruto.” 

The fake Naruto’s chakra was flaring wildly but it didn’t burn and crackle like it should. It was abrasive but not like what she’d gotten used to. It was a good try, it was an  _ expert _ try, but whoever it was picked the wrong target. Ino looked at the trees surrounding them but couldn’t see anything of concern. “Where’s the rest of your team?” she asked. 

“Dealing with your pathetic teammate,” they replied. Naruto’s orange clothes and blond hair were fading away to show sickly pale skin and a large straw hat. An impossibly long pink tongue wetted parted lips. “I was sent ahead to deal with you two. This test has been just  _ too  _ easy, really. What a disappointment.” 

“You’re a grass nin,” Shikamaru said. “Your specialty is most likely genjutsu.” 

Ino relaxed a bit, genjutsu they could handle. She was an expert at dispelling those types of energies not to mention instinctively observant enough to notice one almost immediately. “You picked the wrong team to mess with then,” Ino said with a cocky smile she didn’t quite feel. 

The grass ninja laughed and she replied, “Oh, such confidence. Tell me, have either of you been to the village hidden in the grass?” 

Ino felt chakra seep into their surroundings. She kept tabs on where it moved and made checkpoints for physical landmarks. “Can’t say I’ve ever had reason to go. Nothing of interest,” Ino replied. 

“Then let me show you what you’re missing.” 

Then the world around Ino went grey. She wasn’t standing anymore, she was on her knees, struggling to not fall all the way to the ground. Her hands hit the dirt and her arms shook as she forced herself to fall no further. When she looked down, there was blood on her knuckles. A chilling laugh made her eyes snap up to see the grass ninja who was standing in front of her. A look to her right showed Shikamaru in nearly the same position as herself. His eyes were on the ground though and his entire body was shaking. His eyes kept switching between wide open and clenched shut. 

Ino gathered her chakra and pushed it out, aimed at her surroundings. She needed to break the genjutsu before the grass ninja struck. But her chakra just lapped weakly at grey nothing. “What is this?” she gasped out. 

There was an unnameable terror building up in her chest and trickling down into her every muscle. She started to shake harder and struggled to keep a line of thought going. She tried to sit back and bring her hands together in a hand sign but she couldn’t move. Even her head, which she had been able to move just a moment ago, was paralyzed. 

This wasn’t a genjutsu it was… she didn’t know. “What is this?!” she asked again. There was a tickle at the back of her throat like a caught scream. 

“A genjutsu, you stupid child,” the grass ninja crooned. Ino couldn’t see them but the voice was closer. 

The sound of a kunai slipping from a pack made her gulp. Her eyes closed as she was hit with a vision that felt more real than the grey that lay around them. Behind closed eyes she was still stuck in the same position, weak and unmoving. She watched the grass ninja stroll by her. They stopped at her back. A gentle hand pulled her chin up and she looked at the leaves above. From that perspective the forest didn’t look too different from the ones she’d grown up in. The ones she would apparently die in. The press of cold metal to her neck made her thoughts scatter. All she could focus on was the slow tearing pain of the kunai edge pressing deeper and deeper, until she felt blood rushing down her front and the leaves above her faded into black and agony. 

Ino gasped and her eyes flew open to see her bloody knuckles once again. “What?” she sobbed out. 

The grass ninja’s laugh scittered down her spine like a spider. A quiet step forward made her shaking stop for a moment in panic. Another step and Ino knew what was coming. She’d just seen it, hadn’t she? 

This was a genjutsu though. A genjutsu she could break. Unless… 

_ “There are three types of genjutsu,” Asuma had told her. “The difference is in what they are anchored in. A physical genjutsu isn’t anchored on the victim but rather their environment. It’s an easier genjutsu to craft and the easiest to break.  _

_ “The second is anchored in the mind of the victim. Causes them to see things that aren’t there, it’s a self contained jutsu, only visible to those who are affected. Those are harder to break, but not impossible.  _

_ The third is the most dangerous. A kind I’ve only seen once. It’s anchored in the soul. Much like a Yamanaka they can reach a victim’s life energies, but they use chakra instead of their own soul like you. They slip a part of their chakra into a victim’s soul, just enough to anchor an emotion or a vision or, for the very very powerful, an entire environment.”  _

_ “Who can do that?” she asked.  _

_ “I’m not sure, but I once knew a young Uchiha who could do something like it. That was years ago though. No one in this village is capable of such control.”  _

_ “So how do I break it?”  _

_ “You can’t.” Asuma gave her a very serious look. “But sometimes you can survive it.”  _

No. Asuma was wrong. She had to break it, everything was breakable, everything had a flaw. Her eyes flicked to the side but she could barely make out the edges of Shikamaru’s fingers. She needed him right now. But he was gone, lost in a vision she had no doubt. Of his own death, perhaps repeated over and over again. He needed her more.

But why wasn’t she still lost in that vision like him? “Your genjutsu is impressive,” Ino said though she almost didn’t manage it, she had so little air in her lungs. 

The approaching footsteps paused. Ino wished she could see the other’s expression. The body, anything beyond her own fingers. She couldn’t read what she couldn’t see. 

“As is your tenacity. Most would still be lost, like your friend there.” 

What would her friend do? What would Shikamaru say? He’d once broken out of an enemy genjutsu by breaking his own finger. The pain snapped him back to reality. But she couldn’t move. She pressed her tongue to the back of her front teeth and wondered if she could bite it hard enough to shock her. It wouldn't work though, she was sure of it. She was already aware of the genjutsu, she needed to shock her soul somehow. 

Ino felt for her soul, that life energy that hummed just underneath the skin and mingled with her chakra. She was intimately familiar with it. She was a Yamanaka after all. She began to gather it further into her chest. An easy exercise even when her body was paralyzed. The more she gathered the less terrified she felt. 

She smirked, the expression hidden by her position. Those footsteps were still slow but moving closer. She pulled her soul in and balled it up in her chest. Usually she would make the window with her fingers and push her life energy from her chest, through the window, and into her victim. 

This time she balled it up and focused her chakra on it. The grey around her had already started to fade as she pulled her soul into itself. She was breaking the anchor there, pulling her soul out of the enemy chakra, but still it persisted. Like greedy thin fingers grasping at the edges of a sleeve. She focused her own chakra into a tight line and with a heavy exhale she smashed it into where she could feel that cold slimy chakra pulling at her soul. 

The invading chakra quivered but held. Ino gasped in some more air and tried again. The footsteps had stopped behind her. Any moment now she’d feel cold fingers on her chin. Then shortly after Shikamaru would suffer the same fate. She closed her eyes and gathered her chakra again. This time she gave it a sharp edge and she imagined it cutting through the chakra binding her. She pushed with all the fear she was drowning in. Fear of dying, fear over losing her best friend, the fear of leaving Naruto behind. 

At the touch of her honed chakra the slimy invading chakra burst into pieces and melted away. She released her soul and felt it slam back into place. Her bones hummed with soreness but her body finally stopped shaking. She heard a sound of surprise from behind her but she was already moving. She threw herself toward Shikamaru, slipped her arms under his lanky frame, and ran up the nearest tree. She kept running, bounding from branch to branch for long breathless moments before she had to stop. 

She propped Shikamaru up against the trunk as she settled the two down on a wide branch. She focused on getting her breathing under control and listening for any followers. She couldn’t hear anything over her own gasping though. Her lungs burned with each inhale. 

Shikamaru stirred and groaned beside her. She looked over at him to find him blinking groggily and taking shaking breaths similar to her own. “What happened?” he asked. 

“I was brilliant, is what happened.” She could finally hear beyond her panting. All she heard was the rustling of leaves. “I broke a soul genjutsu, that’s what happened.” 

“You what?” Shikamaru asked. She gave him a shaky smile and a wink that felt more like a very tired blink. 

“It’s a stupid idea to try and trap a soul of a Yamanaka, don’t you think?” 

After a long moment where he stared with wide eyes, he chuckled and ran a hand over his face. “Of course. That makes sense. That was clever, Ino.” 

“You can be impressed, I won’t hold it against you later. At least, not a lot.” 

Shikamaru smothered a laugh and asked, “And now? Report.” 

“Not much to report. I broke the genjutsu right before the grass ninja slit my throat, I grabbed you, and I ran.” 

“No eyes on Naruto?” 

She shook her head. “No, but right now I’m counting that as a blessing. I don’t think I could have carried both of you.” 

Shikamaru stiffened next to her and she turned to check on him. He was staring over her shoulder intently. The soft sound of movement behind her made her freeze. A chill worked its way into her body, leaving her arms covered in goosebumps. She slowly moved her head to look and found two identical looking hunched figures. They were crouched and balanced on their toes, their straw hats blocking their faces, two small plates of metal flashed on the brims. They were perched on different branches not too far away and facing their direction. 

She took a deep breath and stood up. “Where’s Naruto?!” she demanded. 

The figure on the left shifted minutely. 

“If you’ve done something to him, you’ll regret it!” she shouted. 

“Regret is such a silly emotion, don’t you think?” a silky voice said from behind. Ino felt the shadow-memory of a kunai on her neck as she turned and stared at the grass ninja that had nearly killed them. She took a strong grasp of her soul and sunk into a defensive stance. 

Shikamaru propped himself into a crouch but didn’t stand. He faced the two at Ino’s back and she trusted him to do it. They were a team. They were a member short, but still a team. 

“I thought these exams were going to be boring. I’d hoped otherwise, but had no real expectation. But you, child, you’re quite interesting. Breaking a soul genjutsu like that, it shouldn’t be possible. How did you do it?” 

Ino curled her lip up and sneered as best she could. “I’m a Yamanaka, you dumb bitch.” 

“Yamanaka? I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with that term. Is it a title? A name?” 

“I’ll tell you if you give me your scroll.” 

“How inspired, but unfortunately I can’t do that. I can’t return to my village without a victory in my hands.” They pulled out a scroll, a heaven scroll, and shoved it into their mouth. Ino watched in horror as the ninja’s jaw distended and a heavy tongue curled around the scroll aiding them as they shoved it further in. A loud swallow and the scroll disappeared from sight though Ino could see its shape moving down the other’s throat. 

Ino’s face scrunched up as she watched. “Ew!” 

The ninja chuckled and said, “I will give you a similar offer, child. Give me your scroll and I will let you go. I dislike punishing true talent.” 

“And I dislike being underestimated.” Ino pulled a kunai from her pack and spread her feet apart. 

“I’m sure you do.” 

Ino felt the two grass ninjas behind her move, but she didn’t turn. Shikamaru shifted behind her and then there were twin exclamations of confusion. She didn’t risk looking away from the shinobi in front of her but she listened amusedly to the sound of two people straining to move bodies that were trapped in shadows. It was a sound she’d heard many times before. 

“Interesting,” the main grass ninja muttered. “I’ve never heard of this jutsu either. How did you do it?” 

Shikamaru grunted out, “I’m a Nara, you stupid bitch.” 

“This tires me.” They brought a pale hand up to their mouth and bit the pad of the thumb just hard enough for blood to bead heavily above the skin. Then with a harsh movement they slammed their hand into the branch they were standing on and shouted, “Summoning jutsu!” 

The branch snapped in half, along with the sound of dozens of others doing the same, as a giant snake appeared under the ninja’s hand. Ino looked in disbelief at the monstrous creature. “Why can’t we do stuff like that?” she complained. Then she put her kunai between her teeth and began to run up the trunk of the tree she was standing on. She needed to create distance between this new attack and Shikamaru’s vulnerable position. She jumped to the next tree and the next and the next as the snake moved to catch up. It was bigger than her and faster than her. 

She moved her hands through the necessary signs and took a deep breath in. She paused, standing on a wide branch, and then with a heavy exhale she blew out a billowing cloud of black smoke directly in front of her, between herself and the approaching snake. As the snake drew nearer, plunging into the billowing cloud of smoke with a hiss, Ino smirked. A little chakra to her teeth and she gave the final hand sign of her jutsu. Then she snapped her teeth together sharply. From the impact of her teeth connecting a few sparks formed and whirled through the air. With a gentleness that was almost comical, the sparks drifted into the smoke where they ignited the smoke in a violent fiery explosion. 

The snake made a harsh screeching sound but Ino didn’t wait around to see what happened. She took a step back to the edge of the branch and then let herself fall backward, her feet sliding around to the underside of the branch as chakra kept her hanging there like a bat. Then she let go of the chakra grip and fell to the next branch where she landed with a neat handspring back to her feet. Then she ran again. 

Jumping from tree to tree, she made a small circle back to Shikamaru. She glanced over to see the other two grass ninjas crouched in place, only this time it was a direct mimic of Shikamaru’s stance. Their straw hats weren’t on their heads anymore but rather several feet away, each snagged by a different branch. The hitai-ate sewn into the brims of the hats glinted at Ino. 

The grass ninja on the left was wearing a shrivelled mask that reminded her of the head hunters one of her cousins had told her about a couple years ago. Looking where the eyes should be only showed two small indentations, like a resting face. She couldn’t tell if the mask was made from leather or wood or something much worse. What was up with these grass nins’ creep factor? Each of them made Ino’s skin crawl. 

The grass ninja with a visible face was staring at her with heavy contemplation and judgement. They were preternaturally still and not just from the shadow possession paralysis. Both of them looked like they weren’t breathing. With each of her own breaths she expected them to break through the shadows and jump at her with grabbing hands and cruel smiles. Ino pulled at her ponytail nervously and forced herself not to take a step back. 

Ino looked back the way she had come from and saw a lot of smoke. The snake was jerking its head back and forth and hissing loudly as it reeled back from where Ino’s fire had been. It made some rough coughing and gagging noises. Ino was satisfyingly amused to see the grass ninja struggling to stay upright and balanced on the snake’s head. 

“We need a plan,” Shikamaru said. 

“We should get out of here, we can’t get the scroll from them anyway, the creepy snake ninja swallowed it.” 

Shikamaru made a strange noise at that and then added, “If we run, they’ll follow.” 

“If we don’t, we’ll die.” 

“They’re not great choices, I’ll admit.” 

Ino laughed. The snake was calming down and the grass ninja atop its head was speaking to it in low tones. “I have a plan. But it’s a stupid one.” 

“All your plans are stupid, that’s why you have me.” 

“Yeah, well you’re not doing much for the plan right now, so we’ll go with mine.” 

Shikamaru chuckled and Ino noted the strain behind it. “I’m good for another minute or so and then I’m done.” She looked once again at the two vulture like enemies and she knew without a doubt they would attack the second Shikamaru weakened. They were just as much of a threat as their snakey friend.

“Okay, just be ready to jump out of the way of a giant snake if it comes this way.” 

“Like I wasn’t already?” 

Ino ran up the tree trunk and perched on a higher branch. The snake had finally stopped hacking up a lung and was now apparently listening to the ninja atop its head. “I knew someone from a  _ grass _ village would be vulnerable to  _ fire _ ,” she shouted with her best mocking tone. “Hope I didn’t toast you too badly, wouldn’t want the scroll getting cooked.” 

The grass ninja said something but Ino couldn’t hear it very well over the snake’s hissing. She jumped one tree closer and said, “What are you, like thirty? Out here getting beat by thirteen year olds? What a pride of your village!” 

Ino jumped a couple trees over and closer to the snake. 

“You insolent brat!” the grass ninja shouted. Their clothes were singed around the edges and a large burn ran up one arm. The snake's eyes were bloodshot and watery and tracking her every move. 

She took a steadying breath and jumped through the trees so Shikamaru was out of the blast zone. The snake was beginning to move now and she smiled when it charged for her. She had half an idea for a crazy plan and she was just crazy and desperate enough to actually try it. She pulled a length of wire from her pack and threw it up above her to wrap around a high branch. 

The snake was approaching at a speed that Ino had difficulty tracking but she let go of her constant analytical thoughts and let instinct take over. She gave a terrified laugh as the monster in front of her came close enough to smell, smoke and something soil-like that she was unfamiliar with. A moment before the snake’s impact into her tiny form she gave a harsh push against the branch underneath her and pulled harshly on the wire at the same time. 

She went flying up and over the snake’s head as it slammed into the tree. The cracking sound of all that wood fracturing into pieces was deafening and rather akin to lightning. Ino let go of the wire the moment she was airborne. She tucked her hands to her chest and her arms to her side as she spun with the momentum of her jump. For a breathless moment she couldn’t see anything, she was twirling too fast to focus on anything but the blur of green of the trees around her. Her ears hurt from the volume of the impact and the snake’s angry hissing. Then her mind snapped back into high gear and the adrenaline fell to the back burner. 

She raised her head so she was looking down rather than out, and she finally found her target. The pale ninja was just below her and already unsteady from the impact. Ino kicked off a thin branch, just enough to alter her course down, and went plummeting toward the enemy nin. Her hands at her chest came together into an instinctual rectangle, her soul quivering as it compacted into itself. She’d have to be close, her jutsu couldn’t turn and stalk its prey like Shikamaru’s. Hers was a one shot. 

The moment she felt rough cloth and cold skin she slammed her soul through the window and into the body under her. She felt the moment her soul anchored in the grass ninja’s body but the disorientation of it all was jarring. She was falling backwards from the impact of her own body in the body she’d stolen. She was traveling in the same direction she had been a moment before but it was suddenly backwards and not down. 

Her new left foot slid back to steady herself only to slide along the smooth scales of the snake. Muttering a curse she attempted to anchor herself to the scales with chakra and managed to slow her descent. Just enough for her to find and reach for her own small purple clad body as it fell toward the ground. Catching the edge of the wide rolled collar of her purple top, she yanked back toward herself. 

As her feet finally lost the remaining traction she’d managed to find, all she could see was blonde hair and that stupid orange hairtie she’d put in that morning. She hugged her small body, it momentarily startled her how much smaller she was than the grass ninja, and rolled down the snake’s long body. With a shaking hand she took a kunai from her body’s pouch and struck out into the air, hoping to find something to anchor herself on and stop the fall. 

A wet tearing noise burrowed into her ears and she winced. Hot blood speckled her hand and she watched with a detached sensation as blonde hair was dusted with red as well. The snake let out an unearthly screech that made her hands twitch in an aborted attempt to cover her ears. She dug the kunai deeper and looked around herself as her momentum slowed. She released the kunai and pushed off the side of the snake and toward a nearby branch. She missed and fell painfully to the next lower one. 

She looked back at the snake to find it thrashing in pain and what Ino assumed to be frustration. She had very little schema on what giant crazy snakes usually looked like, but she imagined it would be annoyed. A long shallow but copiously bleeding slice ran three meters down its side and Ino’s kunai was left sticking out at the bottom of the tear. 

Ino threw her slumped physical body over her shoulder and sprinted through the trees like only leaf shinobi could. She stumbled to a stop in the tree next to Shikamaru. When he looked over at her, the two grass ninjas perched above her did as well. Shikamaru’s eyes widened as he took in the situation, but then his expression turned thoughtful. 

“Three grass ninjas in hand are better than three in the bush,” Ino gasped out with a voice that wasn’t nearly as smooth as she thought it would be. As it had been when she’d heard it before. “That’s how the saying goes, right?” 

“I think you’re a bit off there,” Shikamaru responded. “But I’ll overlook it because of your really rather impressive results.” 

“So what’s the plan?” she asked. 

“Our first priority is putting some serious distance between us and these creeps. Our second is finding Naruto.” 

“You want me to knock them out?” she asked as she set her small body down and leaned it carefully against the trunk of the tree. Seeing her body like this was always strange. It wasn’t like seeing a reflection, in a mirror everything was flipped, so seeing her face like this always looked off. And so very young. There were identical scratches and bloody gashes on her arms as the ones littering the grass ninja’s arms as a result of the earlier tumble. Ino grimaced as she stood. 

She looked down at her borrowed body and located the ninja’s pack. She slipped a hand in and slid out a kunai. Turning to face Shikamaru she realized they had bigger problems. How had she forgotten the snake? 

It’s watering red eyes were fixed on their small group. Its tongue was lashing violently at the air between them and its body was almost pulsating with its heavy breaths. For some reason she’d expected it to disappear once she’d slipped into the grass ninja’s body. “How do I make it go away?!” she asked Shikamaru. 

“I don’t know, we never learned about summons.” 

“Surely you’ve read something about it!” 

“I could say the same for you.” 

The snake was slithering forward now. It looked cautious but she couldn’t read anything further than that. She wasn’t sure if it would attack her when she was wearing its master’s skin. “Stand down,” she demanded. The snake didn’t pause its slow forward progress. 

“Bad boy, snakey!” she scolded. Shikamaru scoffed at her and she kicked absently in his direction though he was still a tree away from her. “Stop! Go away! Cease and desist!” she shouted in rapid succession. The snake was picking up speed now. 

“Shikamaru, what do I do?” she asked. 

“You have to disrupt the summons.” 

“Well, how do I do that?” She paused. “Do you think I can mind-wham the snake?” 

“Interesting idea, but that would release the creepy snake ninja. I can’t hold three, I can barely hold these two.” 

She glanced at the two paralyzed ninja and saw with dread that they were starting to twitch in the fingers and arms. Shikamaru was sweating and gasping quietly. She took a step forward on the branch and closer to the snake. She was at eye level with it and the thing really was just huge. It’s body was as thick as the trees around it and she couldn’t see its tail, it was so long. “Your presence is no longer required,” she said confidently. “You’re dismissed.” 

She whirled on the spot as she heard shuffling movement. One of the grass ninjas was now much closer to her unconscious body and Shikamaru’s shadows were visibly shrinking. “Got him,” Shikamaru said. “But not for long.” 

Ino bit a stranger’s lip and turned to look once again at the snake. “We should run.” 

“We can’t.” 

“I know that!” She reached for her ponytail but found only open air. Curling her fingers into fists she glared at the snake. It was only twenty meters away now. “If you attack me in this body, you will kill your master.” 

The snake paused. Its head lowered a little as it stared at her. She heard more rustling from behind her and then a curse from Shikamaru. She glanced back to find the ninja even closer, fingers twitching violently. 

When she looked back at the snake she felt a jolt of fear. It was no longer looking at her. Then it sped forward, faster than Naruto could run, its mouth open and long teeth glinting with moisture, and aimed right for Shikamaru’s back. 

“Shika!” she screamed. 

Shikamaru whipped around to look behind him and Ino noted in a far off section of her mind that the grass ninjas’ heads didn’t turn. The shadows at their feet were little more than strings. Both of them were turned to her. 

They were stuck. Shikamaru couldn’t let go or Ino’s body, and resultantly Ino’s soul, would die. She couldn’t let her victim go or they’d both be dead in moments. And everything was moving so fast. 

She built chakra in her legs, ready to jump and try to intercept the snake on its way to her friend, half a plan forming but overwhelmed by desperation. She wasn’t going to be fast enough. She knew it and she could feel it down to every atom and molecule of the moment she was watching in terror. She could do the math. They were dead. 

She wanted to turn away from the sight of Shikamaru’s shoulders slumping in realization and resignation. She swallowed roughly when the shadows thickened and grasped their victims unforgivingly. He’d made his choice and Ino loved him for it as much as she hated it. Her eyelids were fighting to close and block her sight but she stubbornly kept them open. Shikamaru looked to her with a half smile she’d seen on cloudy days for so many years. The muscles in her legs bunched in the moment before her leap. Her eyes wide open, strayed from Shikamaru’s as they snagged on rapid movement behind him. 

Hope surged through her body like adrenaline and she would have let out a sob if the world around her wasn’t moving so fast. The snake’s massive head came between her and her vision of Shikamaru and the approaching orange figure. And then the snake stopped. Its head was the size of one of the hokages’ carved into the cliff side, and she couldn’t see what was happening. 

She leaped forward onto its head and scrambled up so she could look down at… Naruto. A kunai gripped in each fist and protruding from the snake’s skin. His back to its mouth and panting as he looked down at Shikamaru. She couldn’t see Naruto’s face but she could see Shikamaru’s. There was an expression there she’d never seen before. A mixture of surprise and awe and something darker she couldn’t quite place. Naruto’s chakra washed over her like flames and her muscles relaxed at the feel of it. 

Then the snake gave a shudder underneath her and it reared its head back and away from Naruto. Ino yelped as she was torn away from her team and she dug fingernails into a dip between scales and held on as the monster shook its head. She could still see her boys and a belated sense of relief tickled at her mind. Naruto was okay. 

Then Naruto turned and Ino’s breath caught. His eyes were the red of the fox’s, his whiskers more pronounced. Sharp teeth showed when Naruto smiled with a savageness she knew he didn’t have in him. It was just like Zabuza all over again. But this time… this time Naruto wasn’t just using the orange chakra he dreamed of at night, this time he was using the fox. 

Shikamaru collapsed at Naruto’s feet and those red eyes looked away from the snake she was currently clinging to and back to Shikamaru. Naruto growled in the same moment as the two previously paralyzed ninjas pounced at Shikamaru’s collapsed form. Naruto leaped at them, meeting them halfway with a vicious spinning kick that sent them in two opposite directions. They slammed into trees and slid down out of her sight. She felt a spike in the wild chakra at the impact and she knew those two weren’t getting up any time soon. 

The snake steadied underneath her and she stood with shaking legs. Naruto turned to face them and those red slit pupiled eyes glanced over her with no recognition. It made her legs shake even harder. 

Naruto jumped and before Ino could blink he was standing at the snake’s nose, glaring at it. It looked ridiculous except for the part where Naruto was oozing power that made her want to collapse. “I don’t know what’s happening,” Naruto shouted at the snake, at the situation, she wasn’t sure, “but Shikamaru and Ino are my team! I won’t let anything happen to them! You hear me, you lousy beast?!” Ino sunk down to her knees and gave into the chakra that was pulling at her skin like physical fingers. She felt her being mesh with that chakra around the edges and instead of burning it felt like electricity dancing lightly across her skin. “I’ll skin you and wear you as shoes before I let you hurt them, believe it! I’ll split you open like the snake that ate me earlier! I showed it and I’ll show you!” Naruto pulled his fist back and chakra visibly gathered around it. Naruto’s jacket and pants were flapping in an invisible wind and she could actually hear the sound of the chakra humming, or perhaps it was Naruto growling. 

The snake made a strangled noise that Ino didn’t understand and didn’t know how to explain and then it poofed out of sight with a large cloud of light smoke. She felt relief and satisfaction and pride before the physical effects of falling sliced through her body and flipped her stomach in on itself. She tried to curl her body and grab a branch but the body was unfamiliar and her limbs were too long, she couldn’t make it obey her panicked flailing. Her soul quivered as it tried to disengage from the body but it was moving as spastically as her body, clinging to pieces in a poorly placed panic. 

“NARUTO!” she screamed, one pale and unfamiliar hand reaching for the orange she’d learned to associate with safety. A strong hand with short stubby fingers curled around her wrist and she felt violent chakra encasing her as Naruto’s body curled around her. She closed her eyes and pushed her face into Naruto’s jacket, part of her wondering how Naruto was holding a body so much larger than his own. 

When she opened them again she was sitting on a branch and Shikamaru was sitting across from her. Naruto stood between them, his chest heaving with breaths that had the edge of a growl on each exhale. She looked at Shikamaru and gave the hand signal for  _ report _ . He just shook his head and returned the hand signal for  _ regroup _ . 

She didn’t know what he meant so she just returned her attention to Naruto. She reached out a tentative hand toward him and slipped her fingers through his. Her hand dwarfed his and she wanted nothing more than to be back in her own body so she could properly feel his too hot skin. He turned to look at her and she was happy to look into blue blue eyes. “Naruto,” she said. It sounded breathy to her own ears and she mentally winced. She cleared her throat and added, “Where the hell were you?!” 

Naruto snorted and pulled her up into a standing position. She ended up looking down at his face as he answered, “I got eaten by a snake!” He smiled as if it was an ordinary inconvenience. “And now,” he added, “I realize that it wasn’t just a  _ random _ giant murderous snake that swallowed me.” 

Shikamaru snorted and fell back to lay on the branch and look up. “You’re just now realizing that?” 

Naruto frowned and crossed his arms with a pout that Ino found adorable and annoying in equal measures. “I had other things on my mind!” Naruto scowled and scuffed his foot over the bark. Then he gave a wild smile and asked, “Does this mean we got the scroll?! Did we win?” 

“If you want to reach your hand down this body’s throat and pull it out, be my guest. Just wait until I’m not in it,” Ino said. 

Naruto’s face slipped back into confusion. “Did you eat it? Why’d you eat it?  _ How’d _ you eat it?” He looked her up and down with wide eyes. 

“I didn’t do it!” 

“The scroll was swallowed before Ino slammed her soul into the body, Nar.” Shikamaru propped himself up on his elbows. “Speaking of, we should get her back to her own body.” 

“Operation knockout?” Naruto asked with a grin. 

“I told you we’re not calling it that,” Shikamaru protested but he was grinning. It was shaky around the edges but it was genuine. Then he brought his hands together in the sign of his clan and shadows stretched out and caught Ino in its grip. She never got used to the feeling of the shadow paralysis. The sudden inability to move her body was hard enough, but the shadows also brought with it a chilling feeling that seeped into her skin. Sort of like being suddenly submerged in cool water but with less pressure and more viscosity. She shuddered and then gratefully let her soul slip away from the body and slingshot back into her own. 

She sat up from against the tree trunk and groaned as her bones throbbed and her head ached. She brought a hand up to her forehead and gave a long exhausted sigh.

“You brats!” the grass ninja’s voice screamed. Ino winced and rubbed at her temple. “I’ll kill you, let go of me!” 

“You okay, Ino?” Naruto asked. She opened her eyes and looked over as Naruto and Shikamaru shared a nod. Shikamaru let his shadows slide away the moment that Naruto hurled a chakra dusted punch into the grass ninja’s head, right into the spot that Ino had just been rubbing on her own head. 

The moment his knuckles touched their temple the grass ninja crumpled down into a puddle of limbs on the branch. Ino thought about going over and kicking them over the edge, to watch as they plummeted twenty meters down to the ground and never get back up again. The moment she finished the thought a wave of nausea passed through her. Disgust bubbled in the edges of the queasiness and she shut her eyes. Where had that thought even come from? 

“You okay, Ino?” Naruto asked again, but this time his voice came from right in front of her. She let her eyes open, only halfway, and gave the boy a tired smile. “I’m fine, Naruto, but let’s bring the volume down, yeah?” 

Naruto grimaced and then whispered loudly, “Are there any more snakes we need to worry about?” 

Shikamaru crouched down beside Naruto to join him in looking at Ino. He said, “Not that I know of, but we should get out of the area and fast.” 

“We don’t want to be here when they wake up,” Ino agreed. 

“This isn’t the most auspicious start to our exam, is it?” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Naruto said with a tilt of his head. “But what are you talking about? We beat up a giant snake!” 

Ino thought that wasn’t particularly fair to say. That snake had kicked her butt and then Naruto had growled it out of this dimension. 

Naruto gave her a big smile and added, “We’re doing great, we won!” 

She closed her eyes at the last word. Remembered seeing her own death in a vision and then seeing it approach her while she could do nothing. Thought of the way Shikamaru had shook and panted as his shadows failed. Didn’t feel much like winning. “Yeah, Naruto, we won. Now let’s get out of here.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how was that? 
> 
> Next chapter will have the amazing Team 8!! :)


	3. Old Allies are New Allies!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> InoShikaNar regroups and runs across some familiar faces. Can they work together or will it fall apart?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! With some more Ino goodness. This chapter isn't super exciting but I enjoyed writing Team 8!

Ino pulled her hair tie out when they finally stopped to catch their breath and gather their barings. Her headache was already fading away but the adrenaline crash was proving to be a menace. She felt weak all over and she couldn’t breathe deep enough to get adequate air. 

“You okay, Ino?” Naruto asked, his concerned face swooping into her vision as he crowded up close to her. 

She should scold him, but she liked having him close as a reminder he was still alive. Her eyes searched out her other teammate and Shikamaru gave her a small smile. Something in her shoulders relaxed and released with it some of the general pain in her body. “I’m okay. We’re okay,” she said. 

“Those grass ninja won’t be waking up anytime soon, and by then we’ll already have a scroll!” Naruto replied. “Besides, we’ll all be there next time, together like a team.” 

“Yeah, how did you even get eaten by a snake, anyway?” Ino asked. 

“And how’d you get out?” Shikamaru asked. 

“I got eaten because it swallowed me,” Naruto explained and Ino rolled her eyes. That explanation probably made perfect sense to him. “And I used shadow clones to like break out.” 

“You made shadow clones? How many?” Shikamaru asked. 

“I don’t know. A lot. Enough to bust out of a snake’s stomach, and he wasn’t some small snake. Though it wasn’t as big as yours.” Naruto looked upset by that fact and Ino refrained from reminding him that he was the one that stopped both snakes. He didn’t need that confidence boost right now. 

Shikamaru scoffed out a laugh and the sound made Ino smile once again. She cleared her throat and started to pull her hair back into a tight ponytail. “We should get back to the goal at hand, boys. We still need a heaven scroll.” 

Naruto pulled out their earth scroll and studied it like it had some answers. Ino somehow doubted that, but Naruto was just weird like that sometimes. She looked around them and up to the sun to try and make an approximation of where they were.

“We need to stay away from the grass ninja too. We should keep moving,” Shikamaru said. 

“We should keep moving regardless,” Ino replied. 

“We should start the search grid. I’m thinking a spiral search would work better than a straight line since we don’t know the area well enough for--” he broke off suddenly. 

Ino looked away from the sky, that she could barely see through all the trees, to give Shikamaru a questioning glance. His eyes were focused on something behind her and her heart started pounding at the deja vu of the moment. She spun around, still half expecting to find those grass ninja, or feel the cold strong grip of chakra at her soul, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. A few bugs, lots of trees, and the same foreboding feeling as before. 

“Team 8 is nearby,” Shikamaru said. 

Naruto started and shoved the scroll back into his pack. “What do you mean, how can you know?”

Ino scanned the area once again but saw no sign of Kiba or the others. A small shroud of insects buzzed by a few feet away and her eyes narrowed. “The beetles.” 

“Exactly,” Shikamaru said. “Everything in here is at least three times their regular size. Everything but those beetles.” 

“Shino.” Ino frowned at the realization. 

“Those bugs will lead us right to them.” 

Her frown deepened. Team 8 wasn’t exactly a pushover team. Hinata, she knew they could handle. She didn’t know her skill levels very well, but she was certain the girl would do nothing that would harm or upset Naruto too badly. Kiba would be a problem, but a manageable one. It was Shino she was unsure of. His chakra eating beetles would make a bad match for her and Shikamaru. They were both medium range attackers, so the beetles would be a real threat, and the team would be crippled if their jutsus were taken away. Naruto would probably push through it all, but she couldn’t count on that. 

“We don’t have to fight them, necessarily,” Shikamaru said. When she looked up he was looking at her with a grim knowing expression. They both knew their team would need a surprise attack to take on Team 8, but that wasn’t likely with those beetles and Kiba’s senses. “For starters, there’s only a 50-50 chance of them having the scroll we need.”

“Good,” Ino replied with a decisive nod. 

Naruto huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “What? We could totally beat those losers!” 

“Maybe,” Ino said. “But it wouldn’t be easy.”   
“Of course not! That’s the whole point of being a shinobi!” 

Ino glared at him. “You know that’s not true.” She looked again at the beetles, they would disappear soon. She’d almost rather go back and deal with the grass genjutsu than have to fight all those creepy crawlies. But at least she’d know what to expect from Team 8, and she expected them to not outright kill her or her teammates. “Let’s go.” 

Shikamaru nodded and quickly took off after the small buzzing cloud. Naruto whooped loudly as he followed. Ino tightened her ponytail and smoothed down her outfit before she took her place in the back. 

Turned out the other team wasn’t far away. They found the three of them standing in the middle of the clearing and talking loudly. Well, Kiba was talking loudly, the other two were speaking at perfectly normal volumes. 

Ino didn’t catch all the words but it was something about man killing leeches and trees. She noted the way the beetle cloud rejoined Shino and how his shoulders angled a little toward them a moment later. Akamaru’s head came up to look in their direction and Kiba turned to do the same. His arms crossed over his chest as he glared at the leaves she knew were hiding them. 

He sniffed the air and yelled, “What are you idiots doing here?!”

Ino looked to Shikamaru with a silent question of what to do. He flashed the hand signal for  _ follow _ . She and Naruto both nodded and the Nara turned his head back toward Team 8. 

“It’s a pretty good plan,” Shikamaru said loudly. “Except for one thing.” 

“Oh yeah?” Kiba sneered. “And what would that be?” 

“You need your target to approach from a very specific direction.” Shikamaru gestured at the leech trees and then shrugged. “It’s statistically more likely that they won’t. Most of the surrounding area isn’t filled with those things.” 

Naruto let out a sigh of relief and said, “Good!” 

“And why are you pointing this out?” Shino asked. 

“Because I think we can help.” 

Ino looked at Shikamaru and then back down at Shino. “How so?” she asked. 

“It’s simple, really,” Shikamaru said. “You three,” he gestured at Team 8, “lay the trap. Naruto and I will lure someone into it.” 

“We don’t need you to butt in on our plan!” Kiba exclaimed. “We could just take your scroll and be done with it!” Akamaru gave a yip of agreement. 

“You could certainly try!” Naruto shouted. He jumped down to the ground in front of Kiba. Ino jumped down too and she could hear Shikamaru following. She landed in a crouch to Naruto’s right, and Shikamaru appeared at his left. 

“I think you’ll find it a harder fight than you’d expect,” Shikamaru said. Ino straightened up and smoothed her ponytail out. She’d landed in front of the Hyuga and gave her a look over. Not distracted by the written exam or a splitting headache, Ino catalogued all the details she couldn’t see before. 

Hinata had lost the jacket she’d been slouching in at registration, the one she wore through the academy with the Hyuga clan flame symbol on the shoulder. Instead she was wearing a long sleeveless vest. It was fuzzy and the hood pulled over her head was lined with dark fur, just like the Inuzukas always wore. A glance at Kiba confirmed his jacket to be a dead ringer for Hinata’s. She bet if she got closer to the girl, she would smell faintly of dog as well. 

Hinata gave a sheepish wave at Ino’s team and there was a dark spiraling loop that started at the girl’s bicep and went down to her elbow. Since when did the Hyuga have a tattoo? 

“I doubt it,” Kiba snorted. “My sister said that you three were grouped together because no one else would have you.” 

“Hey, give credit where it’s due,” Ino scolded. “Shikamaru and I worked hard to make sure Naruto ended up with us.” 

Naruto jumped and spun in place. “Are you serious?!” 

Shikamaru dropped his head into his palm and replied, “Yes, Naruto. We’re serious.” 

Naruto beamed and then spun just as enthusiastically back to Kiba. “Hear that?!” 

“Look,” Ino interrupted before Naruto could pull Kiba into some sort of argument. “You don’t want to fight us, I guarantee it.” 

Shino’s head tilted a little to the side but his eyes remained as hidden as ever. “We don’t even know if we have matching scrolls or not,” he said with his surprisingly deep voice. 

“Does it matter?!” Kiba growled out. 

“We have an earth scroll!” Naruto said. 

Shino gave a nod and replied, “Heaven.” 

“So we can take yours and forget about the trap altogether!” Kiba said. “You three shouldn’t even be in this exam.” 

“That’s debatable,” Shikamaru said. “Our team is a strong unit.” 

Ino cocked her hip out and smiled. “I’m the heart, Shika’s the brains, and Naruto here, he’s basically indestructible.” She tilted her head in the same direction as Shino had. “And Shino’s crawley bugs won’t do much to him.” It was pure conjecture on her part but they didn’t need to know that.

“So we use the trap to catch someone and take their scroll,” Shikamaru explained. “The team who needs that scroll will take it and the other will keep looking. It’s safer to try it with our help.” 

“You expect us not to attack you out of the goodness of our hearts then?” Kiba asked and then scoffed. “This isn't the time for friendships, it’s every team for themselves in here!” 

“No, we expect you to work with us because, like I said before, you _ don’t  _ want to fight us,” Ino snarked. 

“And how can we know you won’t attack us if the scroll isn’t the one you need?” Shino asked.

“Frankly, it wouldn’t be worth it,” Shikamaru said. 

“Come on, boys, think about it,” Ino interjected. “We all have to live with each other outside of these ugly trees. Do you really think we would want to be reminded of a betrayal every time we had to work together later? It’s our first day, hell, first couple of hours in here, whoever doesn’t get the scroll will have plenty of time to find another one.” 

“Iruka always said ‘undermining a potential ally brings more risk than reward',” Naruto said with a knowing nod. The kind he used when he didn’t know what was going on. 

“Fine,” Shino said. Kiba whirled on his teammate but Shino just held up one hand and Kiba huffed but kept his mouth shut. “You’ll regret it if you’re lying to us. Why? Because none of us are particularly forgiving and we won’t forget your actions.” 

Kiba mumbled something indecipherable with an aggressive tone. 

Shikamaru gave a tight smile and a nod of agreement. 

“You have our word!” Naruto said with a thumbs up at Kiba. 

Kiba rolled his eyes but turned and stomped away toward the trees where the supposed leeches lay in wait. Ino didn’t fail to notice Kiba’s apparent willingness to put his vulnerable back to them. Hinata followed behind him slowly, throwing several glances back at Naruto as she did. She pulled a long tight coil of thin rope from the inside of her jacket and she and Kiba quickly descended into an earnest conversation about knot types. 

Ino was happy to see the way Hinata smacked Kiba’s hands away from her knots as he tried to help. Perhaps there was hope for her after all. 

“Send us a signal when you’re ready, we’ll go get into position,” Shikamaru said. He slouched away, pulling Naruto with him. 

Ino took a couple steps closer to Shino. He turned his head to look at her with what was probably an expectant look, but Ino could never tell. So close to him she could hear a soft droning sound. Barely a whisper against her ears but still obvious. The buzz of small wings and the rubbing of many legs against each other. Ino valiantly didn’t scrunch her nose up in distaste at the realization of hearing Shino’s beetles, but she doubted he would care even if she had. “You should be careful with your beetles in here,” Ino said. Shino’s sunglasses glinted in the sun and she caught a glimpse of a small black spot crawl out from behind his glasses and disappear once again into his ear. She couldn’t stop the shiver of disgust that time. 

He gave a shallow nod and replied, “They led you to us, yes? Your team must have sharp eyes.” His voice was as monotone as ever, but Ino could hear just the hint of a question. 

She shrugged her shoulders and gave him a sideways look. “The only other team that would know to look for them is Sakura’s.”

Shino gave a huff of what Ino assumed was laughter, it distorted the buzzing coming from him unpleasantly. “I’m not worried about them. Truth be told I wasn’t worried about you guys either, but I’m starting to get the feeling I was wrong there.” 

Ino turned to look at him fully. “Not a very Aburame thing to confess.”

Shino didn’t reply or even shift in place. After a short but dragging silence Ino sighed and turned back to Kiba and Hinata’s work. There was a complicated mess of trip wires on the ground now. She could see where Hinata had tried to make a grid, neat and clean, and where Kiba hadn’t cared at all. The finished product was probably better than if either of them had done it alone. 

Naruto was standing just to the side of Kiba now, though Ino doubted very much that it was the real Naruto. “Are you guys ready yet? Shikamaru said he’s found some signs of a nearby team.” 

Hinata blushed and fiddled with the small pieces of rope still in her hands. “Uhm, yes, I think so.” 

Kiba glared at Naruto and put a hand on Hinata’s shoulder to draw her back and away from Ino’s teammate. Ino frowned. 

“Yes!” Naruto swiftly ran up the nearest tree with a smile and a shouted, “Time to get a move on, then!” 

Hinata called out, “Naruto, wait!” 

Ino shared a glance with Kiba and they both winced at the sound of Naruto’s following shout of alarm. Several leeches fell from the air and landed with a disgusting squelching sound on the ground, surrounded by the smoking remains of Naruto’s clone. 

Kiba groaned and Ino face-palmed. “Well, the message got to him, anyway. So now it’s time to wait, I guess,” she said. 

She looked around herself searching for an orange stalker and soon found three. She smiled to herself and relaxed slightly. Naruto and Shikamaru wouldn’t leave her behind entirely. She didn’t think Shino and the others would attack her, she didn’t even have the scroll, but a shinobi couldn’t throw out the possibility all together. 

She gave a swift sign to the three clones high up in the trees when Team 8 wasn’t looking. All three orange jacketed chakra constructs faded away from view as they settled in to wait. Ino gave the area another look over but found nothing suspicious as of yet. She was still unsure how big the forested area around them was, but she had no doubt that some rival teams were closer to them than she would like. 

“I’ll watch the East flank,” Ino said curtly and she didn’t wait for a response. She scaled a tree on the opposite side of the clearing as the leeches and started a simple recon pattern. Twisting around through the trees and doubling back at random times. She found no signs of other teams or any potentially harmful animals or beasts. She passed several centipedes as large as herself, but she steered well clear of them. She could hear the occasional snap of twigs and the scrape of sandals on bark, but she knew them well. Naruto was still with her and she made a mental note to work with him on his stealth skills. Her own leaps and steps were soundless and precise. 

Asuma, relatively early on in their training with him, had sent her to work with a friend for a couple weeks, a very small woman who barely talked. Just clipped orders for Ino and sighs of frustration when Ino failed. But she knew how to move silently and Ino watched and learned because she knew she’d need it. She wasn’t strong in direct combat and her jutsu was made for stealth and infiltration. She could leave the punch fests to Naruto, unlike him she would need to be able to go about unseen. Now, in the forest of death and surrounded by potential enemies, she was glad for the lessons. She used small amounts of chakra to soften the impact her sandals had on the branches she leaped to and from. There was a certain stiffness in her upper body and looseness in her legs that took her a month to perfect, but allowed for her to minimize any shuffling noises or common miscalculations. She allowed her awareness of everything around her to settle into the back of her mind, as Iruka had taught them, so that her every sense could fall back onto the instincts she’d been training since she was seven. 

She paused high up on a branch when a glimmer of something in the leaves far below caught her eye. After a few tense moments of waiting and watching, she slipped down the side of the tree trunk and down to the ground. A double sided kunai was struck into the dirt and sticking out of the leaves at her feet. She pressed her back against the tree and held her breath as she listened hard. But she found nothing. Her eyes returned to the weapon and its pristine shiny condition. She couldn’t wave it off as a kunai forgotten or left behind by leaf shinobi during training. It was both a new kunai and of a style rare for the leaf village. 

She checked the ground for signs of disruption, footsteps, or blood. The leaves appeared unchanged and the mud around the area was too broken up and chaotic for her to find any tracks. She pursed her lips in annoyance and slowly walked her way back up the tree and to the branch she was on a moment before. Another team must have passed by, but she had no idea how long ago it had been. It could be nothing. She crossed her arms and pouted. Shikamaru wasn’t around to mock her for it, which unfortunately also meant he wasn’t around to ask about the kunai. 

She sighed and turned her back on the scene and began running back to the clearing where Team 8 waited. She’d tell Shino and he could send some more beetles out to check. A body fell into step beside her and she inhaled the spice smell that followed Naruto around. “What was that?” he asked. 

“I don’t know. But keep your eyes open, this area isn’t new to visitors for this exam,” Ino replied. 

“Well, the forest can’t be that large, right?” 

“Exactly.” 

Naruto frowned and she could feel his confusion like a familiar blanket. She paused to look at him and he stopped in unison with her. She said, “Have one of your clones on watch all the time, this side of the forest. The other two can stay on me, but I feel like we’re not going to be alone with Team 8 for much longer, okay?” 

Naruto still looked confused but he nodded firmly. “Got it.” 

She made to keep moving when another glimmer in the leaves caught her eye .  She didn’t need to go down to know it was another kunai. Why was someone leaving their weapons sticking out of the ground? Her senses sharpened in response to her heart increase but she still found no sign of others in the trees around them. She suspected that she never would, but the longer she went without seeing traces beyond the kunais, the more suspicious she became. “Just stay on it, okay?” 

Naruto sent her a contemplative look, which was one she didn’t see overly often, but he just gave her a thumbs up and said, “Of course!” Then he turned and began running back the way they had come. A surge of concern made its way through her body but she waved it away. That wasn’t the real Naruto, even if something were to happen, it wouldn’t overly affect her friend. 

She resumed her journey back to Team 8 as she thought. She spotted one more kunai on her way and her suspicions moved into the realm of certainty. When she dropped down from the last tree and landed next to Shino, she swore she saw him flinch slightly. 

Kiba, Hinata, and Shino were all standing in the middle of the clearing, making no effort at staying hidden.

“Could you smell me coming, Kiba?” she asked immediately. 

He shrugged, “Sort of. That direction is upwind of me, so everything is a little distorted, but I’m familiar with your smell.” 

Ino slumped a little in place. “And what about you, Shino? How much can your beetles sense and communicate to you?” 

“Why?” he asked. 

“I think there’s someone here with us. But I can’t find them.” 

“So why do you think they’re here then?” Kiba asked. 

“Just take my word for it, dog breath.” 

Kiba scowled and Akamaru gave a half hearted growl from inside Kiba’s jacket. “Well, if there is someone out there, someone I and Akamaru can’t smell or hear, then they’re using some sort of jutsu.” 

Ino fidgeted in place and bit her lip. The more time passed the more nervous she got. “Think you could go do a scout loop? See if you can smell anything?” 

Shino shook his head, “No. He needs to stay here. If there is someone, or if Shikamaru and Naruto return with a group, Kiba needs to be here to warn us.” 

Kiba gave a smile that showed off his canines and said, “Good thing there’s two of us then, huh?” He unzipped his sweatshirt enough for Akamaru to comfortably jump out and into his arms. “You hear that, buddy? Go see what you can sniff out, okay?” Akamaru gave a short yip and then leaped onto the ground. 

Ino eyed the small dog uncertainly. She could step on him and do some serious damage. “Are you sure?” she asked. 

Akamaru and Kiba both gave identical growls and she held up her hands in surrender. “Alright, whatever. Send your dog, just keep your own eyes open.” 

Shino jumped in, “Hinata, do a visual sweep, at least a full kilometer for distance.” Akamaru sat down and looked at the girl instead of running off. 

Ino looked as well and with growing interest as Hinata gave a strong nod. Hinata closed her eyes and when they opened after a few seconds they were… Ino didn’t know. She’d heard of the byakugan, just as she’d heard of the Uchiha sharingan, but she’d never seen it. The veins around Hinata’s eyes looked like they were fit to burst at any moment, and those normally blank and creepy white eyes were suddenly defined with pupils and irises and shone with nearly white chakra. 

She slowly spun around and stared into the trees around them all. Ino took a step back when Hinata’s gaze cut through her and beyond. She had no idea what the young Hyuga could see, but she just hoped Hinata never looked at her like that again. 

Hinata’s eyes slowly faded back to their normal glassy white and she said with a sad tuck of her shoulders, “I don’t see anything. There’s no one around or in the trees.” 

Ino snapped back away from her thoughts and frowned harshly. “You’re sure?”

“She wouldn’t have said it if she wasn’t sure,” Shino cut in. 

Ino huffed and placed a hand on her hip. “There are kunai stabbed into the earth in multiple places around this area. All of them the same, all of them placed in the same way.” 

“That’s why you’re so sure someone is around?” Kiba asked.

“Well, yeah.” She gestured uselessly toward the trees she’d just run through and continued, “They were new kunai. Clearly haven’t been there long, who else would have put them there?” 

“I think you’re right, to an extent,” Shino said. “The kunais are most likely from one of the teams in the exam, like us, but I think they’re more likely to be markers.” 

“Markers?” Hinata asked. 

“To keep track of where they’ve been.”   
“Which means they’re _not_ here right now,” Kiba concluded. 

“Shouldn’t you have still been able to smell them?” Ino asked. 

Kiba scowled and replied harshly, “You have no idea how it works! If they didn’t spend much time here then the scent would be very faint, and they’re unfamiliar individuals. I can’t track something if I can’t identify it first.” 

“So you’re useless to me.” 

Kiba growled and took a step closer to her but Hinata’s hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks. He still spat out, “I don’t see you doing anything! Shikamaru and Naruto are at least sort of helping!” 

Ino flicked her ponytail over her shoulder and affected her most uninterested expression and body language. Internally she was still running through Shino’s words. He was right, just because someone had been here at some point, didn’t mean they were still hanging around. Just waiting in a random spot would be a strange way to ambush someone anyway. Though perhaps not what with the parameters of the exam. “I’m saving my energy. Those boys need a lot of saving you know.” 

“Oh, I’m sure, the laziest ass in Konoha and the fool of the village. What’s it say about you that you’re stuck with those two?” 

Ino felt a spark flare up in her chest and she crossed her arms as she glared at the dog boy. “How many times do I have to tell you?! We’re far stronger than you think we are!” 

“And yet you’re panicking over whether some imaginary team is following us around. Are you really so scared to fight?” 

“I’ve already fought! And it wasn’t a pushover team like yours either!” 

“What did you say?!”

“I said--” 

“INCOMING!” 

Ino jerked her head around to look toward the sound of her teammate. Naruto was racing toward them with a giant grin on his face, and tearing after him were three unfamiliar ninja. Ino couldn’t help the small smile that curled her lips up at the corners as she watched Naruto’s manic expression. He pivoted on the spot to run straight for the tree line where the leeches lay in wait. 

She snorted as the boy ‘tripped’ over nothing, conveniently giving the three chasers enough time to catch up to him, just as all four of them stepped into the perfect spot. Naruto froze on the branch and turned around with his hands up in the gesture for surrender. “Alright, you got me.” 

The foreign ninja team stopped as well as they belatedly noticed the audience and looked into the clearing where she, Hinata, Kiba, and Shino were waiting. “What?” one of them said. “Does that genin team have four members?” 

The first leech, ironically, fell on Naruto. She couldn’t see his face but his sudden thrashing was enough to make Ino chuckle. The clone poofed out of existence a moment later and the clueless ninjas looked spooked. A second later dozens of leeches suddenly fell from the tree tops and landed on exposed arms and burrowed under clothing. The screaming started soon after. 

At first, they tried to pry the insects off, then slash them off, then they foolishly tried to throw shuriken at each other’s leeches. Ino made a noise somewhere between a snort and a scoff as they flailed in place and made a racket. She almost felt bad, except for the fact that they were clearly useless ninja. She’d expected the leeches would slow them down, but not take them out all together. She’d expected some sort of a fight. 

One of the boys’ feet slid off the side of the branch and he fell, grabbing onto the coat of one of his teammates as he did. The two of them crashed into the trunk of the tree on the way down, hard enough to knock the third from his perch. Ino couldn’t imagine being so clumsy in trees, though perhaps she should give them a break considering they weren’t leaf nin. 

She winced when they hit the ground with a loud thump. The flailing continued on the ground for a second before the trap Hinata and Kiba laid out snapped around them and pulled them up into the air in a small net. A few leeches fell to the ground around the trap and Ino’s nose wrinkled at the unpleasant noise. Then she sighed and looked over at Kiba who returned her look of disbelief. That was pathetic. 

“Are we sure those were even ninja?” Kiba asked. 

Ino replied, “Well, they’re sure not leaf ninja. Can’t even properly stay in a tree.” 

When she looked back at the trap there was no longer any movement of any kind. “Are they dead?” she asked. 

“Well on their way,” Shino replied. 

“Those leeches can suck a human dry in just a couple of minutes,” Kiba added. 

She looked at the slowly swinging trap and its deathly still victims. She waited for some sort of viscerally disgusted reaction but nothing came. Some blood dripped onto the ground below the net and she watched it with detached fascination.

“They wouldn’t have survived anyway,” Shino said, somehow appearing directly at her side without her notice. “If that was how they reacted to a crisis, this was a relatively easy way for them to go. This forest is full of things that would tear them to pieces.” 

She felt very little at the statement. A small amount of pity perhaps. The lack of her own reaction however was troubling. Was she really so removed from the reality of death? She was used to funerals, all shinobi were, but she’d yet to see someone die, by her own hand. Or at least, by her own plan. She gave a mental shrug and turned her attention back to her surroundings. She’d think about it all later when she wasn’t in the middle of the forest of death.

Shaking away her introspection she looked around herself and the clearing. Then swallowed roughly as she realized something very important. She was surrounded. Penned in by team 8. Shino to her left, Kiba to her right, and Hinata standing in front of her. How had she not noticed? Shino backed up a couple steps to move her further into the triangle and she eyed all three of them distrustfully. She’d gotten too comfortable around them, returning to the dynamics from the academy and forgetting they were in a survival test. And with at least three genin dead, it wasn’t a place she could afford that kind of weakness. 

“Hinata, go get the scroll,” Kiba said. Hinata didn’t even pause, just gave a nod and turned on her heel to trot towards the trap. She pulled out a shuriken and threw it lazily. It flew straight through the rope holding the three dead opponents up, and the group fell to the ground. 

Ino felt the burst of chakra as Hinata activated her byakugan. Hinata daintily stepped forward and pulled a small chubby scroll from one of the packs and quickly stepped back out of range. She held it up as she started back toward the group and Ino sighed noisily through her nose as she saw the green casing.

“Aw, man!!” Ino’s entire body untensed at the sound of Naruto so near. She looked up and over to the branch where Shikamaru stood with his arms crossed over his chest and leaned against the trunk of the tree. Naruto was crouched just a couple feet to the side and looking down at the clearing with a clear pout. 

Her relief was short-lived as she clocked movement from both Kiba and Shino. They’d backed away from her slightly, and a couple steps closer to Hinata, but she was still in between them. 

She glanced at Shikamaru and she could tell he had already noticed the positioning. He gave her a soft glare and she gave a slight twitch of her bottom lip as a silent apology. He cleared his throat and said, “Alright, looks like we lost the game of chance.” 

Naruto jumped down to the ground and jabbed a finger in Kiba and Hinata’s general direction, “That’s not fair!!” 

Kiba snarled back, “Oh yeah? Are you going to do something about it then?” 

Naruto blinked in confusion and then replied, “Do what? Is there another team around that we can lure in again?” 

Kiba opened his mouth to snark something back but he was at an apparent loss for words. He shuffled his feet and looked at Ino who just smiled back. “We’re a team of our word, mutt.” She looked back up at Shikamaru and asked, “You see any other teams while you were out on your little field trip?” 

“Nope,” he said, popping the p loudly. “Must be further in.” 

Ino nodded her head and started to walk faux confidently away from her vulnerable position and toward Naruto. Her heart rate skipped a couple beats when Shino shifted, but he was just moving out of her way. She glanced back at Kiba to see him still sporting that same dumbfounded expression. 

“Wait, really? That’s it??” he exploded. 

“What’s what?” Naruto asked. 

“Close your mouth or you’ll catch flies,” Ino teased from her position by Naruto’s side, no longer surrounded she felt confident and more than ready to tease Kiba. He really did make it too easy. 

“Time to head out, guys,” Shikamaru said softly. He was still leaned against the branch looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Unless you’re going to go back on your word and try to take our scroll.” His eyes roamed over the other team in a dismissive manner and Ino admired how intimidating he could look while also not putting any effort into it. She couldn’t do that, not the way he did at least, with those half hooded eyes and the smirk like he knew something important that you’d missed. 

“What?” Hinata gasped. “Of course not!” 

“Troublesome,” Shikamaru murmured so softly Ino could barely hear it. 

“We’ll just be on our way then,” Shino said. 

“You do that,” Ino said, with a real attempt to mask any mocking tone in her voice. 

Shino turned and walked away, Kiba following reluctantly. Hinata blushed and waved a small hand as she stuttered out, “See you guys later. Thank you, Naruto.” 

Her blond idiot of a teammate looked confused by the special mention but he just rubbed at the back of his neck and gave a wave back, “Anytime, Hinata.” She sighed, she really needed to talk to him about Hinata. 

Hinata turned and jogged the few steps to catch up to her teammates. Ino moved to turn around and approach the tree Shikamaru was in, but halfway through the motion she changed course as she saw a flash of movement in the trees opposite the leech infested area. She was startled but not scared, because that blur was once again orange. She watched in bafflement as Naruto’s clone went dashing toward not her, but Team 8. 

Her hand snapped to her mouth to contain a gasp when Naruto ran full steam into Kiba’s side. The growl that Kiba and Akamaru let out in unison was loud and genuinely scary, perhaps because she was so used to seeing the puppy lolling about on Kiba’s desk while he gave the thing belly rubs during class. 

“I knew it!” Kiba shouted. Half way through his words, the Naruto clone burst and a previously unseen flying kunai sliced through the small gathering of clouds that used to be Naruto. The weapon missed Kiba by a couple inches at most and would have sliced his neck if Naruto hadn’t intervened.

Ino snapped her head toward the trees and echoed, “I knew it!” 

Naruto shouted, “They’re in the ground!” 

Ino didn’t have time to react before more kunai came tearing through the branches, but each of them had a paper wound around the handle. “Paper bombs!” she shouted. 

“Scatter,” Shino commanded. 

Ino jumped back and sprinted for the nearest trees. She watched the others out of the corner of her eye as they all did the same. She plunged into the foliage and immediately fell into the shadows. Her steps became silent as she wound her way around the trunks of trees, a kunai slipped into her right hand as she focused her energy on her senses. 

Naruto had said they were in the ground. She thought about taking to the branches high above but she needed to draw her enemy out. They couldn’t afford being followed later, so she remained on the ground though she took great care to keep her footfalls silent. She jumped in place when Naruto’s growling distant voice was echoed by Kiba’s. They were to her right, and by the sound of it, pretty far off. She turned and made her way toward the fading voices. 

Her only warning was the slight rumble of the dirt beneath her feet. It was barely there at all, but with her attention so finely honed down to her environment, it felt like a quake. She ducked into a roll and heard the sound of shuriken go over her head and slam into a tree trunk with dull thuds. 

She spun around as she got back to her feet and instantly spotted her opponent. His eyes were covered by thick dark lensed goggles and there was some sort of breathing apparatus over his mouth. When he chuckled it sounded tinny and entirely non human. More importantly, he was waist deep in the ground, only his chest, head, and left arm fully visible, the rest was out of sight buried in the dirt. He took a step forward and Ino’s eyes widened when the dirt around him moved like it was water, like there was no resistance to his efforts at all. 

“Good reflexes, but that won’t be enough.” Then he slipped into the ground and back out of sight, the ground he left behind looked untouched. Ino stared at the spot with incomprehension for a long moment. Then with a curse she turned and ran. She dodged and weaved between the trees with no real destination, she just knew she couldn’t stop moving or she’d be vulnerable to an attack from underneath. 

Eventually, after no attack came from behind, she jumped up onto a tree trunk and ascended to the lowest branch. Falling into a crouch she looked down at the ground and waited. As she waited she breathed deeply and evenly, attempting to get her heart rate under control, it was far too loud in her ears and was preventing her from hearing much beyond it. 

The distracting thu-thump thump was just starting to fade away when the same individual from before rose slowly from the ground near the base of the tree. He looked up at her with goggles that flashed in the sunlight reminding her of Shino. Only his feet remained buried and Ino saw he was lean and strong. In his hand hand he held a double sided kunai, the exact kind she’d seen stabbed into the ground before. “How long have you been watching us?” 

“Watching?” he rasped through his metal mask. “Not at all, we’ve merely been listening. You were very loud and I do believe you enjoy the sound of your own voice a little too much.” 

“Look who’s talking! What are you waiting for?” Ino pulled a few shuriken between her fingers in her left hand while never taking her eyes off her opponent. 

“For you to come down, of course.” 

She scoffed. “Fat chance, idiot.” 

He shrugged and the movement made dirt puff off his clothes and into the air. “Then I’ll have to make you come down, won’t I?” He brought his hands together and began a long line of hand signs. She turned and ran further up the tree as she wracked her brain for a plan. “Greater Rock Bomb Jutsu!” 

She turned to watch as a huge chunk of dirt and rock rose from the ground in front of the goggled ninja and then went flying toward the tree she was in. She flicked her left hand, the shuriken gliding from between her fingers straight for his face, and then she jumped, away from the tree, and toward the next one. The rock slammed into the tree trunk, close to the base and then with a concussive blast that she felt in her bones, it exploded. She pulled her arms in to cover her face and her legs up to protect her chest as splinters of wood were thrown in every direction. She could feel the sting of them as they slashed through her skin, but nothing major. She uncurled just before she hit the ground and rolled with the impact. 

Once on her feet again she looked around in amazement and horror. That jutsu hadn’t just blown up one tree, but the entire surrounding area was devastated. Wood and leaves trampled to the ground and rocks and dirt swirling through the air. The nearest upright tree was at least a dozen yards away from her. She was stunned that she’d managed to not get severely injured during the explosion. 

Stunned but very grateful. She ran for the edge of the blast zone, knowing she needed the higher ground to keep the advantage. She only made it a handful of yards before she slammed directly into the chest of her opponent as he abruptly rose from the ground in front of her. She jumped back and away from his wide kunai strike and raised her own. He was fast. 

“I think the change of scenery is an improvement for this damn forest, don’t you think?” He spun the kunai in his fingers expertly and Ino slid her feet further apart, falling into the fighting stance that had been drilled into her. “Far too many trees for my taste.” 

Her eye flickered up to the hitai ate tied around his forehead just above his goggles, as if the jutsu wasn’t answer enough. “That’s what I’d expect from a ninja of the stone village. No appreciation for living things.” 

“And leaf ninja, always thinking they’re the best of the best. But look at how easy it was to destroy your precious trees. And I expect nothing else from you!” He charged towards her and she blocked on instinct more than skill or awareness. His foot came out to sweep at her ankles and she jumped over it at the same time as she ducked down and made a jab for his ribs. He fell back and away from the attack as she pushed forward at a run. His hands came together for a split second to form signs she couldn’t see and then he shouted, “Rock prison!” 

A wall of rock slammed up in front of her and she could feel the dirt under her feet shifting as well as three more walls started rising around her. She didn’t pause, she just continued running forward and with effortless chakra channeled to her feet she ran up the side of the wall in front of her, clearing the top a mere breath before a slab of rock slammed over the small prison of stone and dirt that had formed. She let out a breath of exhilaration and then she jumped from the wall toward the rock ninja, who melted back into the earth causing her to fly past the spot. She continued running once her feet touched down. 

She was one good leap away from the nearest tree when a hand slid up from the ground and grabbed her ankle. She fell to the ground in a slump and despite the situation her face flushed in embarrassment. Her knees stung like when she skinned them as a child and she wasted precious time with that shameful recognition. A weight slammed into her back and her face was consequently smashed into the leaves on the ground. The sharp point of a kunai pressed into the back of her neck and she immediately stopped struggling. 

“To think you lost on your own ground,” he said with obvious glee. 

The kunai started pressing forward and Ino made a split second decision. She jerked to the left, the kunai leaving a deep gash at the base of her neck and to the side as she did so, and then she threw her elbow back, hoping for some kind of connection. 

She hit something, and by the pain it caused her she assumed it was the goggles. The minute slackening of his muscles at the shock and strike allowed her to push herself up with her arms and throw him off her to the ground. She spun around and kicked out blindly, hitting something she couldn’t properly see, and then she hastily retreated. When she looked again he was gone and that was getting supremely annoying. 

It was obvious she wasn’t going to be making it to the trees. It was equally obvious that he wasn’t going to let her attack from anywhere but close combat. Which wasn’t her forte in any sense. Fighting with fists and kunai was Naruto’s place, but she’d sparred with Naruto often enough to not feel completely out of her element. Just mostly out of it. 

“If you want a fight, come and fight!” she shouted. The blood dripping down her back was distracting and she could feel the distant throb of the pain, but it was barely noticeable over the adrenaline in her system. For that she was thankful. 

Her only answer was a sudden deluge of sharp rocks rising from the ground and flying towards her. She jumped to the left to dodge and watched with terrified fascination as her opponent rose from the ground exactly where she was about to land. In their right hand was one of those double ended kunai and on his face was a smirk. His arm moved with a speed paralleled by her own movement and she only barely managed to get a foot up between her and him to push the kunai off target as she slammed into his side. They both stumbled away from each other at the impact. 

She barely got her feet properly underneath her when the rock ninja attacked again. Speeding at her with a harsh punch followed by a kunai slice. A hand automatically came up to stop the punch and she pushed herself back with chakra so she slid several feet away from the blade. She successfully dodged the kunai attack but she didn’t get to keep the space she’d created. He was on her again, hacking and hitting at her, and her body responded on instinct and training. She’d be dead without those instincts and she knew it. 

But building instincts was all ninja did. She’d been throwing kunai since her fingers were able to grasp the handle. Fighting and surviving were sewn into her muscles and mind. She risked a quick glance around the area but found nothing of help. The trees were still too far away and she didn’t have the time for any hand signs to call on her fire. 

A strike almost sliced through her shoulder and she refocused on the fight. She turned her shrewd eyes to her attacker. Analyzing all the details she’d seen of his attacks, eyeing his body and the way it moved. He was heavy handed and strong, his speed was similar to her own, but Ino didn’t win fights with her muscles, she won them with her head. With her ability to see the details and take advantage of weaknesses. 

In the academy Iruka-sensei had taught them how to calculate the strength of a strike by using velocity and momentum. To find the angle necessary to hit a ninja at a distance by taking into account wind speed, friction, and the hypotenuse of the physical parameters. Ino had never understood a word of it, and she’d been jealous of Sakura when the girl had excelled with such things. 

That didn’t mean she couldn’t do it though. She just didn’t need the numbers that Sakura had always recited so perfectly. Ino understood the way things moved and the way to alter those movements like the way she knew how to smile without feeling it. 

His style was unfamiliar to her, it was less fluid than the leaf village was known for but it also held more strength behind each blow. Any attack could be redirected though, and the stronger the attack, the stronger the lashback. She smiled and met the next flurry of strikes from her opponent, eyes trained on the trajectory of the kunai, each new angle taken in and catalogued almost faster than the movements themselves. 

When she saw her opening, she didn’t hesitate, she didn’t have the time. Her own kunai lashed out, handle first to smash into the top point of the double sided kunai, redirecting the bottom blade a little further in, a little closer to him than her. Her hands dropped to the ground as she flipped in place, bringing her leg up and around to slam her foot into the arm holding the weapon. And she laughed as the blade stabbed straight down into the meat of the rock ninja’s thigh. 

She didn’t follow through, she knew better than to test her luck. She skidded back a few steps and watched as he ripped the weapon out of his leg in shock, his instinctual action making the wound ragged around the edges and bleed more heavily. He swore loudly and Ino took the time to try and listen for her teammates. She could feel Naruto’s chakra and it wasn’t too far away, but the quiet concerned her. 

Then the ninja melted into the ground again and Ino shouted, “That’s just not fair!” She dropped into a waiting crouch, itching to put her back to a tree, but knowing better than to try and run. In the next instant, the option was taken away from her entirely as the dirt spilled up around her ankles to cover her feet and cement them where they were. She pulled futilely at them, every cell in her body wanting to retreat but being unable to. She nearly fell over from the sudden unbalance but she merely found her new center of gravity and pulled her arms in close to her sides, ready to defend if necessary. 

She contemplated trying to hack the dirt away to free herself when she heard the ground behind her whisper and fall. The flash of the kunai over her shoulder coming directly at her back sent a spike of potent adrenaline and panic through her system. She couldn’t twist and block that blow, she couldn’t roll underneath it either. It was going to hit and it was going to hurt. 

She grimaced and turned as best she could, because she may not be able to avoid the hit, but she could damn well decide where it would land. And she’d rather have a kunai to the bicep then a kunai to the spine. Maneuvering her body where she wanted was easy, bracing herself mentally for the pain was less easy. She was scanning through her options as fast as she could, putting together a plan to force the ninja into a spot she could reach or distract him long enough to remove his jutsu. 

As the kunai closed in she inhaled with the pain-- only to blink when no pain actually came. The weapon stopped an inch from her skin and her eyes flicked up to a small hand with chubby fingers that was positioned almost comically gently at the rock ninja’s inner elbow. 

She sniffed and smelled dog. She blinked and saw dark blue hair move between the weapon and her and felt a rush of chakra directed away. “Four palms!” 

Ino fell to a crouch and began hacking at the dirt holding her in place with her kunai. “Eight palms! Sixteen palms!” Her left foot came free and she huffed in relief. “Thirty two palms!” Her right foot slid free and she was turning and standing in one fluid movement to place herself at Hinata’s side. “Sixty four palms!” 

The rock ninja’s eyes were bulging as his body vibrated with the rapid strikes of Hinata’s tiny hands. His feet and shins were sunk into the dirt, but the rest of him was painfully vulnerable to her attack and Ino was already striking forward with her own hand. Her fist connected with his solar plexus at the same time as Hinata’s final jab hit him in the chest. He fell backwards and landed in the dirt in a small cloud of dust, his feet still buried and ankles undoubtedly injured from the angle they were stuck at. Ino watched, half expecting him to disappear once again but he lay still. He looked dead except for the small rising and falling of his chest. She knew it wasn’t a real mercy though, leaving him where he was still breathing. He’d be dead soon after they left. 

She turned to Hinata but found no concern for the guy there. Those white eyes had already dropped the intensity of the byakugan and Hinata just looked at her with a nervous sort of expectation. “Thanks,” Ino said after a long moment. “I didn’t need it, but I appreciate the help, Hinata.” 

Hinata blushed and toyed with her fingers and didn’t glance twice at the body next to their feet. “Oh, no problem, Ino. No problem at all. I’m just happy I could help.” 

Ino looked at the rock ninja and once again searched for any real misgiving in her chest. But just like the rain team from before, all she felt was a discomfort over her own comfort. She didn’t feel great about feeling fine, and the whole thing was rather confusing. She didn’t wish them harm exactly, but she also wasn’t going to mourn them. With the grass ninja from before, when she’d had that knee jerk desire to push them off the tree and to the ground, she’d wanted to hurt them. Wanted to kick them and watch them break. 

That she wasn’t okay with, or at least, she didn’t want to be okay with it. But this? 

Hinata glanced at their feet as well and Ino saw the shadow of a shrug from the girl. “He doesn’t have the scroll for their team. We should meet up with the others.” 

Ino’s shoulders let go of some of the tension she was holding at Hinata’s own indifference. Maybe it was messed up but at least she wasn’t alone in it. She easily fell into step with the other girl as they made their way back to the clearing they were in before. She kept her eyes on the ground though, half expecting another ninja to pop out of the dirt and attack her. Her bicep brushed up against Hinata’s and Ino immediately recoiled when she felt something scitter across her skin. 

Ino rubbed at her arm and looked down to Hinata’s, to find that what she thought before was a tattoo spiraling around the bicep was actually a string of beetles calmly marching in a circuit. “What is that?!” Ino shrieked quietly. 

Hinata startled and looked at her arm before she smiled. “Oh, it’s just Shino’s way of keeping track of me.” Hinata blushed and looked back at the ground as they both came to a stop. “They’re both very protective.” Her small hand came up to fidget with the charms on her choker and Ino leaned closer to get a better look. The two different colored beads had a couple etchings in them that were filled with gold. The blue bead had a grouping of circles in the middle with three lines going out on each side. The red bead had two identical fangs that Ino immediately recognized as the Inuzuka clan symbol as they mirrored Kiba’s facial markings. She looked back at the first one and studied the six lines that must be the six legs of an insect, a beetle most likely. The Aburame clan. 

“What’s a Hyuga doing with those?” Ino asked. 

Hinata’s small frame tensed and her pale eyes sharpened, though Ino didn’t fully understand how she knew they did. They were the same blank whitish purple as they always had been, but it felt like Hinata was looking through her again; this time without the byakugan. 

“There you are!” Naruto’s voice interrupted. Ino looked up with relief to find both her boys walking toward her alongside Shino and Kiba. 

Shino and Shikamaru were talking quietly and she had to focus to hear the tail end of their conversation. “--should tell Kurenai-sensei that our jutsus, if you could call my abilities such, are a very good match up.” 

“An interesting combination, no doubt. Stalling tactics are a lot more effective when the target can be easily taken out by a cloud of beetles,” Shikamaru agreed. The two of them barely looked ruffled, but Shikamaru had a small cut across his cheek that was bleeding sluggishly. 

Her eyes drifted to Naruto to find the boy looked fine if not a little dirty and scuffed around the edges. “Ino, you should have seen us! Kiba and I slammed that dirt ninja into the ground!” Naruto explained. Kiba rolled his eyes but his grin was just as wide as Naruto’s. 

“It was a rock ninja, Naruto, not a dirt ninja,” Kiba corrected. 

“But he didn’t use any rocks! Just dirt!” 

“That’s not what that means… nevermind,” Kiba muttered. Akamaru and Kiba made a beeline for Hinata and began a cursory look over of their teammate. 

“Report,” Shino said. Hinata straightened up and replied, “I was briefly dazed by the paper bomb making my byakugan useless. Once I recovered I found Ino in combat with a rock ninja and stepped in. The two of us easily dispatched him.” Shino and Kiba quickly fell into a hushed conversation with their teammate that Ino didn’t bother trying to follow. She needed time with her own team. 

Ino sighed as she felt Shikamaru come up behind her and gently push her head forward. She heard Naruto’s sudden silence as Shikamaru hummed behind her. “What happened?” he demanded. 

She looked at Naruto’s sandals as the boy came to a stop directly ahead of her, his hands digging bandages out of his pack and handing them over to Shikamaru. She didn’t fight their efforts, the wound on the back of her neck was starting to sting badly and with the adrenaline fading from her system she knew it would only get worse. 

“He got a lucky hit in,” Ino replied. “He was a slippery bastard.” 

“Doesn’t look like a hit so much as a nearly fatal swipe,” Shikamaru said evenly. She sensed no reproach in his voice though. 

“How bad is it?” Naruto asked. She leaned forward a little toward him and he quickly got rid of the little distance between them and let her lean on his chest. She felt a calloused hand hold her hair away from the back of her neck as two softer hands began to wash the wound out and bandage it. 

They were nearly done before she thought to ask, “What kind of scroll did they have?” 

Shino answered her and she could see out of the corner of his eye that he was holding something up, but she couldn't make it out from her angle. “An earth scroll.” 

“Again?!” Naruto complained. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” 

Ino sighed and joined in, “ That’s our third team today and still no heaven scroll!” Shikamaru clicked his tongue in reproval and she ignored him. A little complaining was good for a person. “And I told you there was a team watching us!” she added with a point in the direction she thought Kiba was. 

“I still don’t get how we didn’t sense them. Me or Hinata,” Kiba said. 

“They were underground,” Shikamaru said. “Hinata probably didn’t look down. She looked up, because we’re leaf shinobi and we always think of the trees, but underneath us?” 

“At least when we fight in the trees we don’t run away for half the fight. My guy barely let us look at him before he was melting away again!” 

Ino nodded, or attempted to, and replied, “Don’t I know it.” Shikamaru stepped away from her and Naruto let her hair fall back down her back. She straightened slightly but didn’t make an effort to take her weight off of Naruto. “At least you guys got the scroll you needed though. Glad someone got something out of this.” 

Shino and Kiba were both holding the scrolls. Shino had the matched set of the earth and heaven, and Kiba was holding up the extra earth. Ino glared at the earth scrolls and pouted. She was tired and she deserved a scroll. 

Kiba gestured with the one in his hand and said stiltedly, “Do you guys want the extra? You should take it with you, maybe you can bargain with it later?” 

Shikamaru replied, “Troublesome. That’s a possibility but it’s more likely to turn us into a bigger target.” 

Ino was surprised at the offer. When Kiba glanced at her she smiled back with genuine gratefulness and added, “You guys take it to the tower with you, that’ll keep an extra team out of the running.” 

Kiba shuffled his feet and gave a nod. “Alright, well don’t take too long getting your scroll.” He shoved the one he was holding away in his pouch. “We’ll be sitting on our asses for four days in there, so hurry and catch up. Shino’ll kill me if I don’t have some sort of a distraction.” 

Shino didn’t deny it and just added, “Best of luck to you Team 10.” 

“Aww, Kiba, Shino!” Ino drawled. “You care!” 

“Don’t worry, guys, we’ll keep the rookies together!” Naruto said. 

“We’ll save you a spot, Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru,” Hinata said with a nod to each of them. She blushed and looked away afterwards and Ino remembered how efficiently she’d destroyed the rock ninja just minutes before. Hinata was an interesting character. 

Team 8 jumped up to the trees and were out of sight a few strides later. “Well, that was interesting,” Shikamaru said. 

“That was awesome! These chunin exams are a lot of fun.” Naruto spun in a circle as he looked up at the trees. Ino cursed his energy and sighed. 

“What next?” she asked, looking at Shikamaru and ignoring Naruto’s many unhelpful suggestions. 

Her oldest friend looked past her at the trees surrounding them and his brows furrowed. “For now, I guess we go deeper in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hinata's character is starting to bloom! I've got a lot of ideas for her and I'm excited for you guys to see her grow!  
> Hope Ino was still fun to read. She's still struggling with her clan background but she's remarkably well adjusted for a tween girl. 
> 
> And I got a few comments about Sumaru from Team 7 and I wanted to say he isn't my character! I took him from the show! Anyone know which arc he's from??
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading, guys. Hope it was worth the wait. The next chapter will be far more action packed!


	4. Sound Off!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team 7's at the mercy of three ninja from a village Ino's never heard about and her team enters into a fight that they weren't prepared for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare yourself for some action!

Ino woke from a dead sleep when a burst of chakra made her skin crawl. Naruto, who had been chosen to keep watch for the night, instantly looked over to her. “What’s wrong?” he asked. He was crouched on a large branch and spinning a kunai between his fingers; he looked almost intimidating with the slivers of moonlight that stretched across his hair and face. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “I felt something…” 

“You felt it?” 

Another wash of chakra and her heart skipped a beat. It felt strange and bad. Unlike a normal chakra, more abrasive than the life energy usually was, even for someone like Naruto. She pushed a little chakra to her ears and motioned for Naruto to fall quiet. 

It took a moment to sort through the sounds around her. The rustling of hundreds of leaves, the scittering of something with many legs, and the slither of snakes in the ground. Then she heard a sound she’d been programmed to respond to. 

She was moving before she realized. Once she caught up to herself though she immediately forced her feet to a stop. Naruto was already beside her and she could hear another set of steps behind them. Shikamaru always did wake quickly when it counted. “What’s going on?” Shikamaru asked. His voice was alert but still groggy around the edges. 

“Sakura’s in trouble,” Ino replied. 

“Do I care?” he asked. 

“What do you mean?” Naruto asked. “Of course we care!” 

“This is a test of survival,” Shikamaru reminded them again. “Not everyone is going to get out of this in one piece. And putting ourselves in the line of fire just increases our own chances of not getting out.” 

“But Sakura is a leaf ninja! Sasuke too.” 

“Ino?” 

She didn’t know what to do. Sakura wasn’t her friend anymore which meant Ino was no longer responsible for her. She didn't want to be either and that lack of culpability was freeing.

“We do still need a scroll, and it becomes more and more unlikely to find weak teams to take out the longer we’re in here. Maybe this could work to our advantage? We should at least check it out,” she said unsteadily. Unsure. 

Shikamaru gave her a skeptical look, “We’re only on the second day.” 

“If leaf shinobi are in trouble, we have to help!” Naruto insisted. 

She and Shikamaru exchanged a look of resigned defeat. Stopping Naruto was a long and drawn out process that they didn’t have the time or energy for right now. And maybe Ino didn’t want Sakura to die just yet. 

Shikamaru sighed out, “Troublesome. Let me lead, I can use the shadows to give us more cover.” He leaped passed them and she felt a coolness descend around her. A grey tinge swam over her vision though she knew anyone looking in was far more handicapped. She kept easy pace with Shikamaru and exchanged several hand signals with Naruto who responded back with a grace she usually only saw in battle. She trusted him to watch their backs and spent her own energy straining to hear more. 

There were the distant sounds of combat that she could hear Sakura shouting in between. Shikamaru was headed in the exact right direction so she assumed he could hear it as well. The bursts of strange chakra had stopped after the first couple waves and Ino wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

It didn’t take them long to find a small clearing where six figures were easily visible. Two were slumped to the ground, Sasuke and Sumaru she realized, and the other four were in a standoff. Sakura was standing between her downed teammates and three other strangers. Her hair was shorn off and mangled pink locks clung to the girl’s clothes. 

For the first time in her life Ino thought the other girl looked fierce. Green eyes were narrowed and her small hands were clenched into angry fists so tight her skin stretched obscenely over her knuckles. “To get to them you’ll have to go through me!” Sakura shouted. 

“Gladly,” a crouched over man replied, on his back was what looked like a bundle of straw. “Zaku, deal with this pest.” 

The other man stepped forward and extended his hand, “One good blast oughtta do it, don’t you think, Dosu?” 

Dosu didn’t have time to respond before a powerful gust of wind blasted from Zaku’s arm and across the small clearing. It tore at the ground as it moved and Ino’s hair went flying into her face from the sudden gust. She was so busy getting the blond locks out of her eyes that she missed the moment of impact. “Wait-- what-- did she?” she mumbled as she scanned the clearing for a flash of pink. 

Shikamaru pointed up at one of the many trees around the edge and Ino spotted Sakura kneeling in one of the lower branches. Zaku chuckled and turned his focus and gaze to the two unconscious boys on the ground. “Looks like I can get a full team knock out in under a minute.” Ino strained to see the downed leaf ninjas, both of them looked roughed up around the edges, but nothing clearly fatal. So why were they out cold? 

“Well, what are you waiting for?!” the slender woman from the attacking team asked. She was glaring at the pink hair on the ground with an intensity that made Ino curious. 

Zaku huffed and braced his left arm with his right hand and took a deep breath. Ino’s eyes went to Sakura who moved at that instant. Pouncing down from the branch with a kunai gripped in one fist, body flying toward Zaku. Ino’s heart swelled with exhilaration. That was the Sakura that Ino had tried to pull out for so long, the one that had stayed stubbornly hidden, only showing in flashes of self righteousness. But now… Her project was a--

The kunai hit metal as Dosu appeared between her and Zaku, his right forearm coming up to block the attack. His other arm flashed out and backhanded Sakura hard enough to send her flying away and slamming into the ground near the impatient woman. 

“Grab her, Kin,” Dosu said. “She’s more resilient than we gave her credit for.” 

Kin did as she was told and pulled the much smaller girl into her chest by grabbing both Sakura’s wrists and twisting her arms behind her back. Sakura slumped and turned teary eyes to her teammates. 

Ino was stabbed with disappointment and she sighed. She’d expected more. What was Sakura doing with her training? Was that really all that she had? Ino had taught her better than this!

Kin twisted Sakura’s arms until she let out a sound of pain. “Please, don’t hurt them!” Sakura begged. Ino grimaced at the desperation in her voice. Why did she already sound like she was grieving? Why didn’t she continue to fight? It irked Ino that after so long studying and manipulating Sakura, she still didn’t understand the girl. Not when it came to things like this, at least. Perhaps the project had been doomed from the start. 

She closed her eyes briefly to feel her team’s chakras buzzing on either side of her. Naruto’s energy and body were vibrating with anger and she knew it was only a matter of time before he burst forward to be a hero. Because Sakura didn’t have it in her to defend her boys, that was obvious, and Naruto still struggled with knowing when to fight or when to hold back. She should have kept her mouth shut, but there was no going back now, she’d follow Naruto anywhere.

She aimed a glance sideways to Shikamaru who met her eyes and raised his eyebrows. His mouth was pulled into a tense line. Despite his expression his body was angled toward her and ready to move at any signal she gave. Naruto would do the same, and she was hit with a wave of love and adoration for her boys.

She raised a hand and made a well-used signal,  _ cower _ , Naruto’s eyes flicked to it and Shikamaru put a hand on an orange clad shoulder. With a final nod at her the two boys sunk into shadow and disappeared. She turned back to the clearing and took a deep breath. If this attacking team didn't have the right scroll then she would take Sakura's as payment. 

Kin had grabbed another kunai when Ino had been distracted. The weapon was held at Sakura’s throat and Ino wondered if the chunin exams were usually this lethal. 

Naruto and Shikamaru would still be getting into position, which meant she had a little time. She weaved her fingers through a long series of hand signs and pushed her chakra slowly and carefully across the ground. It curled around the still forms of Sasuke and Sumaru and she sewed it into the grass around them. 

She didn’t have the chakra strength or the genjutsu sense to do something big, but she could do a simple trick. Make the unconscious genin seem like they were approximately three feet to the left of where they actually were. Even if she could pull off something bigger, something that could scare or confuse the enemy, she didn’t dare. She had no doubt that if she tried to push her luck with an illusion it would be noticed immediately.

But she didn’t need something big. She just wanted a bit of a safety margin, a little something to potentially work with later on. It was often the little things that saved or cut short a life. One too few kunai in a pouch, packing the wrong shoes for a mission, a smile that drew too much attention. 

She exhaled a long breath once the genjutsu settled in place. She stood up from her crouch and rolled her shoulders, bounced on her toes and got her heart beating a little faster. She pulled her hair into disarray and rubbed some extra dirt into her face. Time to cower. It wasn’t the most sophisticated plan in their repertoire, but it was tried and true.

She pushed one leg taut and limped forward as quickly as an injured ninja reasonably could. She made sure to make plenty of noise as she moved and gasped loudly with pain once she reached the clearing edge. 

She curled into herself like her ribs hurt. She knew exactly how badly cracked or broken ribs could hurt, and her stance was one that any ninja would recognize. Tears dripped from her eyes with a practiced restraint and she only raised her head enough to get the barest look at the field around her. She already knew where everything was, she didn’t need a visual confirmation. 

“Ino?!” Sakura gasped between tears. 

Perfect. “Sakura?. ..Sakura! We have to run. We have to get out of here!” Ino exclaimed. The inflection was panicked, her eyes still never lifted to look at any of them, and she put an artful voice crack on the final word. She stumbled forward a couple more steps and then stopped as if she could go no further. She swayed on the spot and took the time to locate Naruto’s chakra signature across the clearing, still behind the protection of the trees. It was dampened and heavy, so Shikamaru’s shadows were still holding both her teammates. 

“Where’s your team, little girl?” Kin mocked. 

Ino startled and pulled her arms further around her stomach, she finally raised her head to look at the three enemy nin with large eyes. “What? Who are you?” She fell backward a long step and then braced herself the way she would when taking a heavy blow. “You need to leave. My team… they….” 

“They what?” Dosu demanded. 

“They’re gone… they’re de-... they were right next to me and then… something came by, something big, and they were just… gone.” Ino looked over her shoulder and scrambled along the edge of the clearing. She wasn’t moving toward the group, but rather around them. She didn’t want to be attacked, she wanted to be watched. 

“There’s nothing out there but weak genin rats like you!” Zaku shouted. She didn’t turn to look, but she had little doubt that he was smirking at her. The bastard. 

She felt Shikamaru’s chakra shift, it turned a little sharper and brighter, but no one in the clearing besides her noticed. All eyes were on her. She moved a little further, she was pulling even with Kin, still at a careful distance. 

“It was massive,” Ino stuttered. “I saw it eat some poor kid whole.” She made a show of looking over her shoulder at the trees she'd emerged from.

“They just don’t make genin like they used to, huh? Good thing the sound village doesn’t settle for weak disappointments like you,” Zaku mocked. 

The sound village? A shift of her feet and she pivoted back toward the open space to peer at the headbands they wore. A single music note etched into metal. Where was the sound village? What were they known for? How would they fight? She was supposed to know things like this. Intelligence was her job. How had an entire village passed by her awareness?

A thick wisp of darkness unfurled from the trees opposite her, and behind the others. It snuck, curling around clumps of grass and over stones, slowly and carefully. Perfectly in control and moving at a sedate pace that reminded her of its owner. Dosu scoffed, “Get rid of her, along with the other one.” He moved to turn, but Ino sprang forward a couple of steps and he froze. “You don’t know these trees like I do,” she gestured at Sakura, “like we do! Let her go, let me leave, and maybe we can all live to see the end of the exams.” 

Sakura was still crying but she wasn’t paying attention to Ino. She was frowning at her teammates, her head cocking to the side a little as she did so. If Sakura broke her genjutsu Ino would never let her live it down. 

Ino persisted, “It’s not supposed to be here! It’s not part of the test! It’s got teeth as long as my leg and eyes as large as--” 

“Stop your crying, both of you, it’s pathetic,” Kin griped, her kunai dug into Sakura’s throat and Ino winced in sympathy, her hand coming up to rub at the wound on the back of her neck. 

The creeping shadow froze in place and Ino watched in interest as it wavered between going left toward the two men, or right toward Kin. It twitched between the two again in the next moment, more obviously. Ino tilted her head to the left and the shadow immediately continued its journey in that direction. 

“Enough of this!” Dosu said harshly. His voice didn’t rise to a shout but it was deep and hoarse and carried. Ino wondered if he ever shouted, if he ever needed to with a voice like that. “Give us your scroll and we’ll kill you quickly, girl.” The attention of the area turned back to Sakura and Ino rolled her eyes as she was easily dismissed as no threat. It was a pattern that was as irritating as it was helpful. 

The shadow was nearly where it needed to be and it slowed to a cautious stop. The sound team didn’t see or didn’t care that she hadn’t run off like she’d begged to just a moment ago. Idiots. Lack of awareness could get them killed. Ino straightened and rolled her shoulders back. She brought her hands up to her chest, fingers to thumbs to form a rectangle. “Mind transfer jutsu!” she exclaimed, rectangle framing Kin’s lean body. 

At the last moment she changed her target and her soul slammed into Sakura’s chest instead of Kin’s. When in doubt a Yamanaka should stick with what they were familiar with. And Sakura was very familiar. The thrown life energy saturated deep and curled around the girl’s mind with ease. “What the--” Kin shouted, the kunai pressed against a pale throat slid to the side, blood following its path as it cut skin. It took only a moment for Ino to anchor into Sakura’s body and settle into its usual spot. Then her new borrowed hand slammed up toward the kunai, smacking into Kin’s fist and pushing the blade away. Kin stumbled backwards in what was most likely shock. 

Ino kicked back with her left foot and connected with Kin’s shin. Her other foot slid forward through the grass and she leaned with the momentum that it gave her to roll forward onto her shoulders and then further forward to spring back to her feet. 

She blindly kicked out in case Kin had recovered faster than expected but her foot cleaved through the air without impact. She reached for a kunai in her pack and wasted a second in confusion when the kunai were on the wrong side of the divider. 

“You bitch!” Zaku shouted, and she saw his arm come up towards her, palm aimed directly at her chest. She’d seen what that arm could do. “Slicing sound wave--” The waiting shadow struck, it rapidly spiraled around Zaku’s leg, stretched across his chest, and snagged around the upheld arm. “What?” 

Ino didn’t have time to move, but the shadows squeezing at Zaku’s shoulder, arm, and wrist jerked sideways and his arm was forced off target. The blast of wind and chakra that exploded from his hand went wide and a second later Ino heard Kin cry out and then the unmistakable sound of a body slamming into a tree. Ino smiled. 

Naruto dropped from a tree and immediately sprinted at Dosu’s back. He had a kunai in each hand and one clamped between his teeth. Dosu spun and caught the first blow with his forearm, the strike sounded of metal on metal just like with Sakura, and Ino tucked that away for later contemplation. 

She twirled the kunai in her hand around and snagged it with the blade pointing along her forearm, and she sprinted at Zaku who was distracted by trying to force his arm and leg out of the shadows holding him in place. She aimed a punch toward his face with the side of her fist. As expected, he jerked to the side to avoid the hit, but a flick of her wrist had the kunai tearing across the skin just under his left eye. 

Naruto hit the ground several feet away from her as she passed by her opponent, but he was back on his feet and charging at Dosu before she could ask if he was okay. She circled around Zaku’s other side and aimed a kick for his chest. His left arm was straining against the darkness curled around it, but his right came up and pushed her foot off course which made her stumble into his hitting range. She ducked under his follow up punch and redirected her fall toward his leg. A quick slice of her kunai to the back of his knee, and his leg gave out immediately causing him to fall backwards and land on his ass. 

Shikamaru’s shadow broke into thinner strands and circled Zaku like a rope. The darkness pulled him down further and further until he was laid out on the grass and pinned there like he’d been caught in a net trap. He struggled against it and shouted out curses and insults but he made no progress toward escape. So she turned her back on him and checked on Naruto’s fight. Only one more member of the team to go, they could do this! 

There were six Narutos, five of them were attacking Dosu with kunai and the sixth was hanging back. It was a normal sight except for the way that the sixth was swaying in place and struggling to stay upright. 

“Naruto!” she shouted, but he didn’t turn to her. Didn’t seem to hear her at all. Naruto fell to his knees and his hands came up to cover his ears as he stared at nothing. His kunai thumped onto the grass in front of him and Ino didn’t know what was going on. 

She felt a surge of chakra from Dosu and the five clones harassing him popped into smoke. She crouched and warily watched Dosu as he glowered at her and Naruto. His sleeve was ripped half off and there was a large metal cast around his forearm. It had holes riddled in it and she knew it was what he’d blocked that kunai strike with. But what was it? 

“You annoying brats!” Dosu hissed out. He braced his metal casted arm with his other hand, an action highly reminiscent of his teammate, and sneered at her. “What do you think you’re doing?” Then he was charging at her and she jumped back and out of his way. She couldn't afford to get close until she knew what she was dealing with. 

Zaku cursed loudly and she heard the rustling of real movement from him. She turned to look and saw that he’d managed to get one of his arms free. He looked at her with wide eyes and smiled, "Are they friends of yours?" With a shout he brought his palm to face Sasuke and Sumaru and released another sound wave. 

Ino watched in satisfied interest as the attack blew past their prone and vulnerable bodies, three feet to the side of them to be more precise. Sasuke's hair fluttered in the wind. Zaku looked confused but then he turned his attention to something behind her. Shikamaru’s voice shouted, “Ino!” 

She stalled in her confusion, he wasn’t even aiming at her. She turned to try and find the target. Her stomach dropped to her toes and her head went a little floaty, because right in Zaku’s line of sight was her own prone and vulnerable body. Completely defenseless. Not even a half assed genjutsu to cover it. 

The blast of power she’d rapidly grown used to blew past her side and toward her body. Asuma had warned her time and time again to never use her jutsu if she didn’t have a comrade to protect her physical form. Her father had made her promise to never be reckless with her own physicality, said that so many Yamanakas of history had ended up in the ground because of that sort of short sightedness. 

She was about to die wearing Sakura’s skin. This would break her teammates, especially Naruto who would be left with only one of the two people he truly trusted. Was this her fault? Was it karma for not caring about the others she’d killed or left for dead in the exams already? 

“No!” Naruto shouted, and it was full of the same sort of grief as she’d heard from Sakura. He was more than just a witness though, he’d give more than tears.

Boiling chakra exploded over the clearing and Naruto stood up on steady legs like he hadn’t just been curled up and senseless. She didn’t see what happened next, but she felt it. Zaku’s sound wave was… slowing down? Naruto’s chakra was pressing up against it and it should have been impossible. 

It should have been, but it wasn’t, but it also wasn’t enough. The wave continued on its way with little more than a hiccup. And when the dust settled the only thing left behind was a trench of broken ground and torn grass. The trees beyond were broken and cracked as well. 

Naruto was gone. Her ankle throbbed and she shifted her weight to the side, eyes locked ahead. Was that… was Naruto… She rubbed at her bleeding arm and forced tears back. 

Viscous coolness wrapped around her legs and she was moving without her consent. A kunai sliced through the end of her ponytail and she swallowed roughly as her body curled forward to avoid the next strike at her back. The shadows retreated after they'd done their job of protecting her during her distraction. She used chakra to push against the ground and slide back several feet away from whoever was attacking her. 

Shikamaru was next to her in the next instant and it was almost jarring to see him out in the light and the middle of a battle. He parried a thrown kunai from Dosu and then he kicked out at Zaku to keep him at a distance from them. 

“You’re still alive, you idiot!” Shikamaru snarled at her. “Give him a little more faith, Ino. You said it yourself, he’s basically indestructible!” 

She was alive. Her body was okay. She looked at her shoulder where she could feel blood dripping but found nothing but bruised pale skin. She winced as the pain in her ankle caught up to her frenzied mind, though Sakura’s body showed no sign of the injury. Her body was  _ mostly _ okay then. 

Shikamaru stepped into her space and she automatically adjusted her stance to allow him free movement. When he leaned a little too far back to avoid another kunai, she pressed a firm hand to the small of his back and held him up, pushing just enough for him to stabilize his position. 

“Slicing sound wave!” Ino slid her hand along his side to his waist and curled her other arm around his back. With a push of chakra out through the soles of her feet she boosted the both of them into the air. The force of the wave clipped her in the side on the way up and sent them both spinning wildly. 

She landed heavily on her feet a few meters away, Shikamaru touching down half a second later, still in the circle of her embrace. She hissed a breath in through her teeth when her ankle rolled to the side and she nearly bit her tongue at the shock and pain. 

Shikamaru slid his own leg forward to press his shin on the inside of her weak ankle and steadied her without a word. She plucked a handful of shuriken from his pouch and sent them over his shoulder toward Zaku. “Can that guy do anything besides that stupid sound wave?” Ino griped. 

Shikamaru untangled himself from her and shifted to stand at her side. “All evidence points to no,” he replied. 

“And what’s up with that other guy, you get a good look at his arm?” She pushed pink hair behind her ears in irritation.

“Don’t know, but it hit Nar hard. Like went down like a bag of bricks within a few seconds hard. That doesn’t happen easily.” 

Dosu called out, “This bores me. You’re stubborn and wily, I’ll give you that much, but it’s time we stop playing around.” 

She looked at Shikamaru. He reached into his pouch and instead of pulling another kunai he retrieved two small trench knives, a bribe from Asuma to get him to train in hand to hand. She’d never seen him use them outside of a training ground. His fingers laced through the holes and he brushed his knuckles against her arm softly. “Let’s go.” 

He went left at the same time that she sprinted forward. The pain in her ankle was distracting but she was no stranger to pain. She didn’t pull back on her speed until she was right in Zaku’s space and then she kicked out at the knee she’d injured earlier and smacked an open palm to his left arm, pushing it to the side to get the space in front of his chest open. She smashed her elbow into the inside of his other arm at the same time that she pulled a kunai with her left hand. 

She bared her teeth as his chest was finally within reach. Arms out, legs unsteady, it was the perfect picture of vulnerability. She struck out toward his left side, near his armpit. She could hit a soft spot and then tear him open. He wouldn’t be a threat to her team any longer. 

Her kunai came to a stop one inch away from his skin. She pressed harder against an invisible force but Zaku was already retreating. His eyes were wide and scared and she revelled in it. Her kunai gave a violent tug backwards and like a fool she held on tighter instead of letting go. She stumbled backwards and finally caught the glint of light on wire. Wire that was wrapped around the back end of her weapon. 

She followed the wire to its source and ended up staring at a very beat up looking Kin. The woman smiled at her, there was blood at the corner of her mouth and she was hunched over much the same way that Ino had faked earlier. “You lose,” Kin grated out, more blood bubbling up in the crack of her lips. She tugged at the wire again and a jingle of bells made Ino’s vision swim. She let the kunai go and stumbled as the world shifted violently to and fro. 

“What’s happening?” Ino asked. 

“The soundwaves from my bells have gotten into your brain and it’s disrupting your brain waves, making you disoriented and off balance. You’ll get dizzy, you’ll see double, and eventually I'll put you out of your misery and kill you.” 

“All that from some bells?” Ino said softly. She grunted as her knees hit the ground, she hadn’t even known she was falling. She tried to squint and see what was around her, but it was a blur of green and brown. The sound around her was echoing loudly and painfully in her head interspersed with the gentle enchanting sound of bells. 

She couldn’t see, she couldn’t move. She threw her senses out and a wave of nausea swept through her at the instant overstimulation. She took a deep breath and forced herself not to vomit. The bells tinkled in her ear and she scowled. She loosened her hold on Sakura and considered her options. She could return to her body but she had no idea what condition it would be in or even if jumping ship would free her from the sound jutsu. Or… 

She didn’t have many other options, did she? 

Her ribs suddenly screamed in pain and her hand came down to push away the attack. Her fingers latched around a thin ankle. She’d been kicked, how insulting! She tried to push at the offending limb but Kin’s laughter was the only response.

She’d had about enough of Kin. She drew back from Sakura’s mind and let her soul drop into limbo. There was a brief sensation of free falling and then she gasped and opened her eyes in her own body. Her head pounded and her bones ached in a familiar way. She rolled to the side and groaned at the  _ un _ familiar scraping pain on her arm. A quick look showed the blood that she'd felt before. The skin of her arm was pitted and inflamed from her shoulder down to her elbow, it reminded her of road rash on top of second degree burns. There was a stinging shallow wound above her collarbone from Kin's kunai at Sakura's throat. Forming bruises over her ribs from the kick.

A shift at her side and she scrambled to her knees, ignoring the ankle and the blood and the double vision that was just beginning to fade. Naruto was laid out next to her and she gagged when she took in the image he created. 

He was covered in physically bubbling orangish red chakra and he was… broken. There was a jagged bone sticking out of his left leg and through his pants, and his arm was twisted behind him in a very unnatural way. His face was covered in blood and mud and his eyes were pinched shut in pained unconsciousness. But he was breathing and when she listened very carefully she could hear… popping. Quiet but distinct popping. 

What? She reached a hand toward him, desperate to touch and help, but the chakra burnt her fingers and she snatched it back to her chest. 

Pop, crackle.  _ Snap _ . 

She leaned as close as she dared and swallowed harshly when she saw a knuckle in his closest hand ‘pop’ back into place. A louder snap and his leg jolted. Something was moving under the skin of his thigh but it was hard to see specifics through the orange sweatpants. 

His head thrashed away from his twisted shoulder and his body arched violently as the arm behind his back began to crunch and squirm and ineffectively attempt to dig itself out from underneath him. 

The skin on half his face had been scraped off, just like her arm. The blood had hidden it during her cursory scan, but she watched the blood bubble along with the chakra and winced at the wet sound of his skin stretching slowly back out to cover the deep abrasions. She thought that maybe she could see a bit of molars through where his cheek should have been. 

Her own body was barely touched compared to… whatever she was looking at. It was sickening and terrifying and she was so glad it was Naruto because he was the only person alive who could have possibly survived that. 

Her head snapped to the side when she heard Shikamaru curse loudly followed by a laugh from Zaku. She needed to get back to the fight. Shikamaru was all alone, against three improbably skilled genin. She needed Naruto though. 

She studied the tips of her fingers where they still tingled from the burn of chakra. There was no visible burns though. They weren’t even tinged pink. Just long healthy fingers and dirt under her nails. 

She reached for Naruto again and didn’t stop when the chakra hissed and burned. She gulped and brought her other hand forward as well. She grabbed Naruto’s leg, the one with the bone still sticking out, and she straightened it out. Blood dripped down her chin from where she was biting through her bottom lip. Inconsequential.

She shuffled closer and gently pushed the bone back through the hole in his skin. It made a wet sucking sound and Ino could feel the muscles of his calf tensing and untensing as if they were actively trying to help her regain the bone. It was disgusting and it hurt, both to watch and to bear the burning. 

She drew back once the bone started to move on its own, shuddering and popping as muscle enveloped it and started to snap back together. She took a deep breath and shook out her stinging hands. Still no marks. 

Next she helped move his arm to where it should be, and then let it heal on its own. A grip on his ankle and a firm push and the joint clicked back in place. A prod at his kneecap and it traveled up the few inches it had dropped. She continued on like that, poking, prodding and guiding body parts back to their respective homes.

When the main injuries had been forced back in place she stood up. She propped Naruto up enough so she could slip behind his back, hook her arms around his chest, and drag him with her. She stumbled and swore and stumbled some more as she walked backwards toward Shikamaru’s far off voice. Naruto’s ankle caught on a rock and when she tugged him harder the bone snapped so loudly she flinched. But it slid past the rock and Ino continued to drag while the ankle cracked and popped back into place. 

The pain brushing across her arms and burying itself into her chest from the chakra was nearly unbearable. Then she’d hear the sound of fighting behind her and it would be pushed forcefully back. She couldn’t stop now. 

Eventually, after a long minute or two, she dropped Naruto on the edge of the clearing. She shook him but got no response. She called his name but his eyes didn’t so much as flicker open. 

She turned and finally laid her eyes on Shikamaru and the scene unfolding around him. Kin was leaning over Sakura’s prone body with obvious confusion. Bells and wire were forgotten and held limply in her hand. 

Dosu and Zaku were both focused on Shikamaru, who… 

When things got bad Naruto would fight like a beast, absolutely feral. When Shikamaru got desperate he would fight like he was  _ possessed _ . By three different people at once. 

Shikamaru was dancing between his two opponents, trench knives blocking strikes and weapons and slicing through the air in warning. The shadows at his feet roiled and lashed out to anchor Zaku’s feet or pull at Dosu’s arm. She watched in utter amazement as Dosu threw a kunai at Shikamaru’s side. Instead of dodging, Shikamaru used shadow possession to make Zaku mimic him and throw his own kunai, which flew right by Shikamaru’s cheek to hit Dosu’s weapon, which was deflected back at Dosu himself. 

Shikamaru flipped his trench knife into the air, pulled a single shuriken out and threw it at the still flying kunai. He caught the trench knife with a flick of his wrist at the same time that the shuriken hit the very edge of the kunai’s handle, redirecting its flight at Dosu’s back. All of it happening within fractions of seconds. 

Shadows latched onto Zaku’s arm and forced a half hearted sound wave to plow into dirt, and Shikamaru wasn’t even looking at him. He was darting forward toward Dosu, dancing just out of reach, but forcing the man back with the threat of being sliced apart by his knives. 

The level of detail and focus and awareness that Shikamaru exhibited was… unparalleled. He threw a few more shuriken at a steep turn and they cut shallowly through Zaku’s side, staying perfectly in the man’s blind spot right up until the moment of impact. Ino didn’t even see Shikamaru pull any shuriken out. Never saw his hands leave the trench knives. 

He dropped to one knee, stabbed one of knives into the grass, and used it as an anchor as he spun around and then shot forward to the side, just avoiding Dosu’s sudden charge. 

Perhaps the scariest part of it all was that Shikamaru’s expression was unerringly blank. His eyes were darting every which way and his brows were every so slightly furrowed, but other than that there was nothing. No reactions to close calls, no smirks of triumph, no emotion whatsoever. She’d hypothesized in the past that it was a result of his intense focus. No energy or awareness leftover for emoting, but she’d never actually asked. It could very well be intentional, she wouldn’t put it past him. 

She tore herself away from her awe and distraction to once again shake Naruto. She was momentarily confused when she saw her own fingers. She’d forgotten she wasn’t inside Sakura anymore. Then she started to doubt herself, were those her fingers? She glanced at the pink spot in the grass that was Sakura and shook her head violently to try and clear it up. The feel of long heavy hair on her back helped to anchor her.

“Naruto!” she exclaimed. It sounded flat to her own ears. His face was fully healed but still covered in blood. His arms and legs were no longer bent in any wrong places and no bits of bone were visible. But he still wasn’t waking up. 

Shikamaru gasped and her entire attention turned to him once again. He was slowing down. By the looks of it he’d gotten a little too close to Dosu, he was stumbling and confused looking. He still ducked out of Zaku’s way and kicked him in the side but it lacked the grace he’d been showing just moments before. 

Dosu smirked from behind Shikamaru, and Ino’s body tensed as the back of her mind screamed in warning. Instinct drove her forward but she was fueled by desperation. She left Naruto on the ground and sprinted as fast as she could to her other teammate. 

Zaku feinted an attack and Shikamaru reacted. He should have seen it as it was, but something was wrong with him. His eyes were unfocused. 

Dosu was getting too close and the man’s casted arm rose in preparation for an attack. Ino could get there in time, and she would, but she knew there’d be a price to pay for it. She was all too aware that Dosu’s weapon was strapped to that arm. 

She slid in behind Shikamaru, her back brushing against his, and she raised both her arms in a bracing defense. Dosu’s arm smashed into hers and she held firm against it, taken aback by how little strength was in the blow. Then vibrations shuddered through the metal and into her arm. It felt like stinging nettles all through her nerves and then her legs buckled. Shikamaru’s hand touched her hip and she regained her footing. 

Dosu laughed and lifted his arm again. Ino didn’t have time to do anything other than brace once again. The second onslaught of soundless vibrations made her collapse. Shikamaru followed behind her. A moment of blackness and when she came back to herself she was laid out flat on the ground. Her head lolled to the side and she saw Shikamaru in the same position. 

“Got any plans?” Ino whispered nearly unintelligibly. 

“Fresh out of ideas here,” he answered just as quietly and mumbled. 

Her body wasn’t reacting to her at all. Her vision was fading away completely. The last of her strength was used to turn her face back to the sky. It was like she was stuck in that soul genjutsu again, but this time she didn’t feel a way out. 

Dosu laughed again and then taunted, “Just like Kin, I manipulate sound waves, but my jutsu is not quite so forgiving. Where hers is like a poison, mine is like a hammer.” She could only see black. Could only feel the faintest hum echoing and forcing its way through her muscles and nerves. 

She choked on her own saliva and couldn’t even cough to clear her throat. Her eyes rolled back in her head. It felt similar to being soulless and empty, like she was for the moment before her life energy burrowed into another mind. Everything was numb and distant. Then pain started filtering in. Like a stretching ache, like her body was trying to tear itself apart. Or maybe it was just her head that was being tugged in so many directions. 

“You’ll die here, you brats, all of you. The leaf village’s time is up and it starts here with you. The first blood, drawn by me.” Something wet dripped from her ear. She smelled rust. 

“Naruto,” Shikamaru gasped out and Ino had no idea how he was able to talk. She couldn’t even feel her tongue. “Where...where?” 

“Did you guys really think you could burst in and fight us? Mere genin against the best of the sound village?” 

But they were all genin, weren’t they? It was the chunin exams… Ino couldn’t hold onto the thought, she couldn’t really do anything. 

“Stop playing,” Kin scolded. “Let’s get this done with, my back is killing me.” 

“Very well.” 

Ino was distantly glad that she was no longer hearing bells at least. 

“LEAF HURRICANE!” 

She flickered in and out of a deep darkness. It was cold and she wanted to be warm, but she couldn’t remember why. Her ears were picking up the sounds of a fight but it was faded and hard to follow. She swallowed down some bile that had creeped up the back of her throat and wished that she could cough. 

“I vowed to protect her with my life!” 

Who was that? 

“You’ll end up just like them, you fool!” 

Like who? 

“Where are all these genin coming from? They’re popping up like weeds!” 

There was a joke in there somewhere, about leaf nin and weeds. She was sure of it. 

“Leaf hurri--” 

“Stay down.” 

Her heart gave a lurch and she frowned. Or, she felt like she should be frowning, maybe she wasn’t actually doing so. There was a slippery feeling in her chest. Like something important had happened that demanded her to act.  _ I vowed to protect her with my life _ . 

“Zaku, get rid of them all.” 

A flare of chakra rolled over her and stung at her senses, and it was the best most welcome feeling she’d had in her life. Her eyes opened without her conscious effort. She stared at the blue sky. 

“Touch them and I’ll kill you.” 

Naruto. Naruto. Naruto… 

More chakra and she tasted coal on her tongue. She thought of the color orange. She thought of… Naruto. She focused on it, pulled on the chakra that was lapping at her own and she focused on the memory of Naruto’s blue eyes. 

A small quiet corner of her mind remembered a different chakra, the one that had woken her up from a dead sleep. Where was that? She hadn’t felt it again, and with Naruto’s coarse chakra rubbing at her own, it became all the more clear how wrong it had felt. Even Naruto’s monstrous chakra felt more natural. 

She squinted at the clouds and thought a bit hysterically that it was a terrible time for cloud watching. Shikamaru was a bad influence on her. Her injured ankle twitched and the pain that followed and climbed up her leg to her stomach helped shake her out of the numbing blanket that had covered her. She panted and strained and after a long few seconds she managed to move. She pushed harder and she rolled to her side. 

She looked up and for some reason the first thing she noticed was the kid standing on a tree branch and looking down at Naruto. He was wearing white and he looked vaguely familiar. Then her eyes snagged on the color green; Lee was collapsed right in front of her. And then orange, where Naruto was standing and panting and facing down all three sound nin. 

They weren’t moving, none of them. Not the kid in the tree, not Lee, not Naruto, and not the three ninja from the mysterious sound village. 

Wait, someone was moving. 

Sumaru sat up and looked around himself in bafflement. Sasuke stirred next to him and Ino wondered if perhaps Naruto’s chakra had woken them up. Maybe like her it had given them a handhold to drag themselves out of the coma like state that Dosu’s jutsu forced on her, and assumedly them. 

She struggled to look at them as they woke and took in their surroundings. It wasn’t because of Dosu’s mind melting attack though. She squinted and recognized her own chakra enveloping the boys. Right, she’d forgotten about that. She could feel the corners of the genjutsu still clinging to the ground. Blood dripped onto her hand from her mouth. 

She kicked Shikamaru in the head, lightly, and hissed, “Get your lazy ass put back together and follow my lead.” 

He grumbled unintelligibly but his arms started to twitch like he was fighting to get out from under a great weight. She could relate. She started crawling and the intensity of the chakra rolling off of Naruto made her shiver. Kin’s knees were wobbling. Naruto’s chakra grew even heavier and Kin fell to the grass with a muffled bell ring. 

Zaku said something cocky and it broke the silence but not the stillness. She reached Sumaru’s side, shoved him back down on his back and hissed, “Stay down.” Sasuke glared at her and remained half sitting. Sumaru mumbled something but she was literally pinning him down, so she didn’t worry about it. 

She jolted in place when Naruto moved. He was fast, faster than he should be. She couldn’t see his face but she’d bet her year’s allowance that his eyes were no longer blue. She struggled to keep up with the fight between Naruto and the other three so she stopped trying. Instead she took a corner of the chakra she’d cemented in the ground before and stretched it over herself. Then she pushed and pulled it until it covered a slowly crawling Shikamaru as well. Sakura and Lee were too far away to worry about concealing. 

Naruto stumbled and she froze as she stared over at him. But he shook his head violently and then sprung at Zaku. The sound nin were fighting for their lives, that much was obvious, and Naruto’s fingers were dripping with blood. 

Zaku couldn’t hit him because Naruto was never in one place long enough and there was no telling where he’d move next. Kin was getting tangled up in her own wire as she tried to keep up and Dosu was panting and holding his arm in front of him like a shield instead of a weapon.

But Naruto, as much as he was winning, was stumbling every other step, his head kept snapping back and forth and his strikes were wide and clumsy. She saw a flash of blue and then a flash of red and then a flash of blue as he shook his head once again. 

The only reason the sound nin were still alive was because Naruto was fighting to keep control. And the longer the fight went on… the more chance the Kyubi had to break through that control. She shivered again and brought her shaking hands together. She wouldn’t mourn their deaths, but Naruto was already scared of himself. He didn’t need to come out of the Kyubi’s chakra and realize he’d brutally murdered three people. It would set back the progress she’d made with him by months.

She held the genjutsu she’d created in her focus and started to weave together signs. She zeroed in on Zaku. He would be the best candidate for so many reasons. Her fingers shook and made her signs sloppy but they were enough. Her chakra creeped forward and over to Zaku, enveloping him and she pinned it into his mind. Just a little suggestion, just a reminder. 

She reinforced the coverage of her and the others, just a little to the left. Just a little bit  _ off _ . 

Zaku glanced in their direction and she smirked. Either he was no good with genjutsu or Naruto was distracting him too much to do anything about it. To notice it at all. 

Ino faltered when Naruto’s hand shoved all the way through Kin’s side. He laughed too deep for it to be his own and ripped his hand back out. Kin slumped to the dirt with a wheeze. Things were getting out of control. Naruto bit at Dosu’s neck and barely missed. He swiped at Zaku’s eyes and the only thing that saved the guy from permanent blindness was the way that Naruto’s eyes went blue and his arm purposefully pulled back and away. 

She flowed through more signs, pushed more chakra. She was panting and sweating and she ignored it all, because Naruto was fighting two battles and he was only winning one of them. His body wasn’t reacting to his own orders and she could only imagine the terror that must trigger. Her boy was hurting and scared. Unacceptable.

“What are you doing?” Sasuke demanded, though he mostly just sounded confused. She looked at him just long enough to catch the spin of tomoes in red eyes. She didn’t answer, she didn’t have the breath for it. 

Sumaru moved underneath her and she hissed wordlessly as she pushed her elbows further into his stomach. Both Sasuke and Sumaru started to move in earnest, Sasuke said something about the fight but she didn’t hear it. Sumaru’s chakra pulsed underneath her and she very nearly lost all concentration. 

There it was. That  _ awful  _ chakra. The chakra that made her insides recoil and twist. Wrong wrong wrong. It slid over her skin as Sumaru struggled and it left her feeling nauseous and like the ground underneath was swaying back and forth. Cool shadows slid past her and twined around Sumaru, pinning him to the ground. Sasuke grunted as they reached him as well and prevented further attempts of leaving.

Ino withdrew from Sumaru’s body and his chakra, grasping at her concentration. She shoved all other thoughts away. She’d deal with it if she lived through this. 

She picked up the signs where she’d left off. She just needed to push a little more  _ intent _ . 

Zaku straightened and his gaze once again returned to them. Or where he thought they were. Awareness of the battle field was a heady advantage and it was all Ino would need. She smiled and pulled a kunai followed by a second. She pushed off of the ground and over Sumaru, ignoring the sounds of pain he made as she did so. She stumbled into a crouch, her every muscle was protesting and her ear was still bleeding onto her shoulder which just congealed with the rest of it already there. Her ankle was the worst though, as it threatened to give out or snap. It wasn’t just pain but a severe physical disadvantage. But she only had one chance at this. 

Zaku broke away from the other two, which left Dosu wide open for Naruto to rake his claws over his undefended side. 

Zaku almost tripped over upturned grass but his gaze never wavered, the wisp of the genjutsu she’d pinned to his mind held strong. He brought both his arms up and she felt the limbs condense with power. And he aimed just passed them, beyond them, three feet to the side. His face was half crazed and his eyes were burning with murderous intent. 

He kept moving and Ino bided her time, watching his every move as he got closer. She glanced at Shikamaru and he was tired looking and scared but when he met her eyes he looked confident in her. 

Her ankle rolled as she jumped forward at Zaku, but it didn’t matter, she’d already pushed off. Zaku didn’t notice her, too intent on where she  _ should _ be. The tip of her blade met his arm and she tilted it at an angle and pushed. The kunai cleanly pierced all the way through the arm. The side of the blade glanced off of something hard, harder than bone, but it didn’t stop the weapon. She pushed under his arm and stood up directly in front of him, his chest to her back. She spun her second kunai point down and then stabbed it into the other arm, just below the elbow.

She turned, and like a puppet Zaku turned with her. She twisted the kunai and his arms followed her movements. She elbowed him in the stomach and his chakra released forcefully as his breath puffed out against her neck. Two blasts of chakra and wind and sound tore across the clearing for the last time. Dosu and the struggling to stand Kin were too focused on Naruto to see the forced attack from their teammate. They were blasted away from the blond boy and into two separate trees. 

Ino huffed out an approximation of a short laugh. It worked even better than she’d hoped. Neither Dosu or Kin got back up. The combination of the damage that Naruto had done and the violence of Zaku’s sound waves had proved to be too much even for them. It was almost anticlimactic. 

She grinned at Naruto whose eyes were now bleeding a deep red. “Naruto--” she broke off as blunt pressure hit the back of her neck. Her wound from the fight with the rock ninja flared pain up all the way through her head to push at her eyes until she cried out. 

Zaku’s breath was no longer brushing across her skin, but was pressed right up against her… he was biting her. It was a smart move, really, but his teeth only caught the gauze and bandages that Shikamaru had lovingly wrapped around her. 

It didn’t deter him as he pushed forward and bit down harder. Her ankle rolled again as she let go of her kunai and tried to shift out of range. She fell and it tore Zaku’s teeth from the wrappings with an agonizing pull. 

Zaku stumbled in the opposite direction and away from her.

She pushed up to her knees and steadied herself with a hand on the ground in front of her. Zaku’s heat was at her back again before she could take a full breath. “What--” 

A hand slammed into the back of her neck and pushed until her face hit the ground with a jarring impact that made her teeth rattle. Blood welled up from where she’d inadvertently bit her cheek. “You think you can trick me like that?” Zaku hissed in her ear. His hand dragged the bandages down from where they covered the wound and his fingernails dug into the edges of where her skin split. She cried out and tried to pull herself away from it, from him. Her fingers curled into grass and dirt and pulled but he was heavy and she was tired. So tired. 

A growl so loud it made the ground tremble under her hands made her freeze in place. Then the weight of Zaku was gone and she scrambled to get away, to put space between her and the threat. Rocks slid underneath her fingernails as she pulled with all her might and then flopped to her back, unable to leave it open to another attack. 

Naruto was crouched over Zaku. One of the sound nin’s arms was splayed out pinned to the ground with Ino’s kunai, which he’d apparently not bothered to remove. Naruto slammed the second one into the ground as well, leaving Zaku spread out and defenseless. Her teammate’s small body was shaking and jerking and his fingers were bloody claws. His hair had turned coarser and she knew if she could see his face… 

Naruto lifted a hand and the claws gleamed a translucent red in the sun. He plunged the hand down toward Zaku. She didn’t know if the strike was to hit Zaku’s chest to punch out his heart, or to rip out his throat, or to… 

The blow didn’t land and she gasped as she saw the shadows at Naruto’s feet. Shikamaru crawled forward and stopped halfway over Zaku’s pinned arm. He looked up at Naruto and whispered, “Naruto?” 

The darkness twined around Naruto’s arm pulsed rhythmically in a sign of Shikamaru’s exhaustion. Naruto was straining against them and his hand was moving slowly and steadily toward Zaku. The blond didn’t even look away from the pinned man.

“Naruto!” she shouted and his body gave a minor jolt. His arm stopped shaking with the force he was pushing it forward with. 

“Hey, Naruto, bud,” Shikamaru said, pushing up to his knees so he could reach out with his hands. Zaku didn’t twitch as his arm was jostled, he didn’t seem to be conscious anymore. She couldn't find any relief in that though, not when Naruto looked so haunted. 

Shikamaru’s fingers framed Naruto’s cheeks, his palms cupped just under his jaw. “This isn’t you.” 

Ino sat up and started to crawl once again. She hadn’t crawled this much since she was a child. She moved closer to Naruto as Shikamaru continued to speak in low tones. She saw Sasuke’s wide eyes fixed on Naruto’s face, saw Sumaru’s matching fear, still laying down on the ground even though no shadows held him there. 

She reached her teammate and she wanted to wrap herself around Naruto’s back but she couldn’t stand. So she settled for hugging his leg to her chest. 

Red eyes glanced down at her and stuck. She maintained eye contact and fought down the shivers that wanted to rip her apart. Naruto blinked a couple times and eventually his eyes faded to blue. Then his eyes closed and Ino watched him breathe. 

“You with us?” Shikamaru asked. His hands pulled Naruto’s face up to look at him. Ino pulled herself even closer, using his leg as a steadying point as she situated herself so she could see his face as well. The whiskers that had become thick and dark thinned out and closed to the scars she was used to. His hair went limp and ragged and she smiled happily. Her boy was back. 

“I’m sorry,” Naruto said, and Ino’s smile dropped when tears carved through the grime on his cheeks. 

“You saved us, Nar,” Shikamaru said. 

Naruto’s chakra was settling under his skin and Ino frowned as she realized once again, just like back on the bridge in Wave, that the out of control chakra didn’t feel that much different than the dormant buzz Naruto was returning to. It was the same, just on different levels, and she didn’t know what that meant. 

Her eyes flickered to Sumaru. She didn’t know what his chakra meant either.

“I did good?” Naruto asked, his eyes finally opening again to meet Shikamaru’s. Then down to look at her. 

“Yeah, Nar, you did,” she replied. “I’m proud of you. You were fighting two battles there, and you still came out the victor.” 

Naruto rolled his shoulders and he looked like he wasn’t sure what to do with the praise. She’d have to work on that later. He chuckled and wiped at his face causing the tears to combine with the dirt and dust and mud to leave muddy smears over his cheek bones. “Do they have the right scroll, do you think?” 

Ino laughed and slumped down to the ground in shock and relief and exhaustion. “They better.”

She and Shikamaru, in unison, looked at Sasuke and Sumaru in wary contemplation. Sasuke was standing and pulling Sumaru to his feet as well. When the Uchiha caught her gaze his sharingan flickered on and then off again. He turned away and pulled Sumaru with him toward Sakura. Sumaru picked the girl up and disappeared into the trees. Sasuke looked back at them once and then followed. Neither of them said a word.

“That chakra…” It was little more than a murmur but Ino’s hearing was sharp. Even exhausted it was easy to pick up. She jerked to look up at the tree where two figures now stood. The boy in white and a girl at his side. 

“Our teammate seems to have gotten caught up in something he shouldn’t have,” the mystery boy said once he realized he’d been spotted. Shikamaru and Naruto turned to them as well. 

A long silence dragged out between them all. Neji’s body language showed no fear. No curiosity or awe. His eyes, like most Hyugas, were unreadable. He was a blank slate. 

“We’ll take him now,” the girl said. She jumped down and to Lee’s side without ever turning her back to them. She took one of his arms and slung it over her shoulder. She struggled almost comically with the boy’s weight before she managed to get her legs straightened out. The boy in white jumped down and took the other arm and together they managed to lug Lee up between them. 

“Tell him…” Ino trailed off. She knew Lee had been there, knew he’d fought but she hadn’t even been aware enough to see it. It felt disrespectful. “Tell him thanks.” It wasn’t enough, but she didn’t know what else to say. 

The girl nodded tightly. Unlike her Hyuga teammate, she was easy to read. She was scared as well. The group jumped back to the trees and disappeared just like Team 7. 

Naruto huffed and then walked over to Dosu. The sound ninja didn’t react at all when Naruto fumbled through his robes until he found a pouch. It took him longer than she’d expected to stand back up. She realized why when he held up four scrolls. 

Her head slumped back in relief when she counted two heaven scrolls in the pile. 

“Finally!” Shikamaru said. “Now we can sleep.” 

“First we have to get to the tower,” Ino reminded him. 

His answering laugh wasn’t amused or even relieved. It sounded delirious. That wasn’t a good sign...

Naruto lay down on the ground next to her, scrolls dropped to the side, and she pulled him into her side with a weak arm. It was mostly Naruto moving in the direction that she poked him into. But it ended with him close to her so she wouldn’t argue. He smelled like blood or maybe she was smelling herself. Shikamaru settled on her other side and his hand came up to ruffle Naruto’s hair. 

“Thanks for stopping me,” Naruto said eventually. 

“You’re welcome,” Ino replied. 

“It wasn’t even…” Naruto hesitated. “It wasn’t the fact that I was killing them that was the problem, it was the fact that it wasn’t my decision. I  _ would _ have killed them myself if they didn’t stop hurting you guys. I just couldn’t…” 

“I get it,” Shikamaru said. 

Ino hummed tonelessly and nodded her head. “It’s about control.” 

“Yeah,” Shikamaru agreed. “And after we get through this forest and the damn exam, we’ll work on a way to help you keep that control.” 

“Do you… do you think it’s possible?” Naruto asked. 

Ino thought about the similarities of the chakra and she said, “Yes. I do.” 

“I’ll believe you then,” Naruto said with an audible smile. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole chapter is basically just one really long fight scene and I hope that it wasn't tedious. The next chapter will be much less physical action and a lot more character interaction (which I'm looking forward to immensely). 
> 
> I felt really bad about it being so much action actually, and then I remembered that this is a Naruto fanfic lol. Naruto is basically just fight and battle scenes connected by crying scenes and the occasional like info dump. So I guess I'm just staying in the spirit of the show. 
> 
> We'll see a lot more of Team 8 and Team Gai in the next chapter or two, and Gaara's time is coming up real quick. :)   
> Lemme know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> I don't like the way the female characters are treated in Naruto. Sakura isn't likeable at all, to me. Ino wasn't fleshed out at all. Hinata was a plot point and an annoying one for me.  
> But they all COULD have been amazing. And maybe they get better in Naruto Shippuden, idk. I know Hinata gets blue dragon fists or something and Sakura can break mountains...? Only seen gifs of it. I'm starting from scratch with their beginning characters and trying to write them like they aren't cast away characters.  
> I'm also going to be spending a lot of time on Team 8 and Team Gai.  
> I do have character development in mind for Sakura. This isn't a whole Sakura bashing fic. She just needs some help getting to be a not terrible person.  
> Hinata, ohhoooo, do I have plans for her. She's gonna be badass for sure.  
> So, stick with me, I guess, if you're interested in these things.  
> Hope you enjoyed it!


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